The agreement for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez signed by the PNV and the PSOE has passed its first litmus test in recent days, with the transfer to the Basque Government of three transfers that, as agreed, were to change hands within a maximum period of three months. The central Executive, in addition, has previously complied with several of the points of the agreement, reversing the dynamics of the last mandate, marked by non-compliance, and shielding the relationship with the jeltzales, who in the middle of the electoral period boast of the usefulness of their seats in Madrid.
The limited degree of compliance with the agreement for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez last term left the PNV’s relationship with the socialists very resentful. The Jeltzales, who wanted to be treated as a preferred partner of the Government, felt ignored and saw how the Executive’s failures undermined one of their traditional electoral assets: that of achievers who look after Basque interests in Madrid. To make matters worse, EH Bildu gained weight by competing in this section and also achieved preferential attention from some ministries, to the greater annoyance of the Jeltzales.
The legislature concluded with a rarefied atmosphere in which there were many voices in the PNV in favor of opening an agreement with the PP as long as Vox was not in the equation. The polls, however, ended up speaking in a very different sense than that in most of the polls, and from election night that option was ruled out, even though the popular party insisted throughout the summer on something that was simply an impossible on a political level. The Jeltzales, in any case, were clear that the agreement they signed with the socialists had to be registered in very different terms.
From that reading came the new pact between PNV and PSOE to invest Pedro Sánchez, signed on November 10, and which had little to do with the previous one. If in 2019 it translated into 12 points and a little more than one page, on this occasion the Jeltzales opted for a more exhaustive text, of 10 pages, in which, in addition, some of the agreements were subject to specific deadlines for their compliance. .
The three and a half months that have passed since the signing of the pact have been enough for the PNV to change its starting position with respect to the Government, marked by misgivings, and to think that non-compliance will not be the trend on this occasion. On the one hand, in this time, such specific points have been achieved as the legal change that has allowed the segregation of Usansolo with respect to the municipality of Galdakao, something that required reducing the legal threshold to become a municipality (from 5,000 to 4,000 inhabitants). ), or the modification that allowed the prevalence of regional labor agreements, a commitment that fell when Podemos overturned the corresponding decree of the Ministry of Yolanda Díaz and that the PNV hopes to redirect soon.
On the other hand, the central government has signed the transfer of those first three powers subject to a specific deadline: the management of several commuter lines still in the hands of Renfe; the competition for the validation of higher studies abroad, which seeks to contribute to alleviating the shortage of healthcare workers in the Basque Health Service-Osakidetza; and, thirdly, the reception phase for migrants once they have received international protection, a transfer that will allow the Vaso Government to manage the support services for migrants when accessing training for employment, the search for housing or integration activities.
This fluidity in compliance with agreements is not a minor aspect for the PNV. If the failures of the last legislature hampered his position in Madrid, this new situation strengthens him in the middle of the electoral period and allows him to accentuate a discourse that vindicates Basque self-government as the ideal framework to solve the problems that affect citizens. At a time when it is blamed for disconnection from society’s problems, the jeltzales claim to be a training focused on management and linked to everyday problems.
Although the Basque electoral period will generate dissonance and a clash has just occurred regarding the Housing Law, the degree of harmony between Jeltzales and socialists is high, both in the Basque Country and looking south of the Ebro. In an interview with La Vanguardia, the PNV candidate for lehendakari, Imanol Pradales, called for betting on “stability” in Madrid, since “it will bring more revenues at the Basque and Catalan national level.”
In Euskadi, both the PNV and the PSE have made it clear that their first option after the elections is to reissue the agreement in force during the last term and that allows them to govern the main Basque institutions. Another thing will be what may happen in the middle of the legislature, a moment marked in red in the PNV-PSOE investiture agreement and in which, as stated, the Statute of Gernika must be transferred in its entirety and there must be agreed the bases for a new self-government framework. Meanwhile, the Basque horizon appears clear for the Government.
