Six months after the first Government was formed between the PSOE and Sumar, and after the insistent demands of the party led by the second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, both parties are celebrating this Thursday in the Congress of Deputies the first meeting of the coalition agreement monitoring commission. Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz herself signed said political pact, which gave rise to the second Executive of the progressive coalition in democracy, the previous month, in October 2023.
Representing the PSOE, the first vice president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, attended; the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños; the spokesperson for the Federal Executive of the party, Esther Peña; and the Secretary of State for Relations with the Courts and Constitutional Affairs, Rafael Simancas.
The Minister of Culture and spokesperson for the party, Ernest Urtasun, attended on behalf of Sumar; the director of staff of the second Vice Presidency, Virginia Uzal; the Secretary of State for Employment, Joaquín Pérez Rey; and the Secretary of Organization of Sumar, Lara Hernández. All members of the parent group so that there have been no representatives of the coalition formations such as IU, Más Madrid or Compromís.
Although since then this coalition has not faced as many internal tensions as the one experienced by the coalition formed in the previous legislature between the PSOE and Unidas Podemos, Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias sealed that government coalition pact, the first of democracy in Spain, in 2019, Yolanda Díaz’s party has also expressed numerous discrepancies in the actions of the Executive.
Sources from the confederal space trust that the conclave will allow the development of a work program so that the signed government agreements become laws.
The original idea, established in the Government agreements, was to hold this meeting every two months to naturally analyze the progress of the agreed measures. And not activate it when “there is a problem” -as happened in the previous legislature with the coalition between the PSOE and Unidas Podemos-. “Spain has to see us walking together” despite being two different parties, justified the leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, this week.
According to the coalition agreement, this commission had to have been established within the first 30 days of the formation of the coalition government, which took effect on November 20. Given the obvious delay, Sumar’s spokesperson and Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, and the executive coordinator of the formation, Josep Vendrell, wrote to their socialist partners to demand its constitution.
In addition to Sumar’s disagreements over the increase in defense spending that Sánchez has defended, in the face of the war in Ukraine, or for not breaking relations with Israel in the face of the war in Gaza – the group urges recognition of the Palestinian State and also now demands the blockade of the Borkum ship in Cartagena, with the argument that it transports weapons for the Jewish State – Yolanda Díaz herself demanded to immediately fill with content that “full stop” that Pedro Sánchez announced after deciding to continue leading the Executive after the five days in April when he reflected on his future. From Sumar, they urge the PSOE to repeal the so-called Gag law and undertake a comprehensive reform of the Judiciary, given the persistent blockade of the PP to the renewal of the governing body of the judges.