“The agreement can, it must and it will be reached,” Pedro Sánchez assured, showing his “full confidence” that Spain will soon have a new progressive coalition government to face a new four-year term, “without fear, with ambition and with audacity.” The acting President of the Government has already taken it for granted that, after Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s investiture fails – “the Popular Party does not have the votes,” he has warned – he will achieve his re-election, supported by the social majority that closed the election. move to the right and the extreme right in the elections of July 23, to begin a new stable four-year legislature. “Progress and coexistence are going to be the two axes that justify the legislature of the next four years,” Sánchez assured in the inaugural conference of the Ateneo de Madrid breakfasts that he hosted this Monday.
At the beginning of the new political course, supported by the new president of Congress, the socialist Francina Armengol, by the acting vice presidents Nadia Calviño and Teresa Ribera, and by the majority of the acting socialist ministers, Sánchez has emphasized the territorial coexistence in “plural Spain” as one of its priorities for a new term. The PSOE leader has advocated “leaving behind a past of trenches and dialectical barricades”, with the endorsement of the “brave, risky and sometimes misunderstood measures by Spanish society” that he adopted in the last legislature, such as the pardons to the leaders of the procés or the repeal of sedition and the reform of embezzlement.
“We have done it with a noble goal, which is to continue advancing in the solution of the serious fracture that we inherited in Catalonia”, he has claimed. “Betting on dialogue and harmony are the best solution to this crisis, a solution that is fully constitutional, which has worked, because Catalonia is infinitely better today than five years ago”, he argued. And without expressly referring to the amnesty demanded by the pro-independence forces, Sánchez has defended that “the time has come to be coherent and continue advancing in that purpose for coexistence”.
“The next legislature must be the one that definitively leaves behind the fracture that we experienced in 2017,” the acting chief executive proclaimed. Sánchez has assured that since he arrived at Moncloa a stage of “reunion and harmony” with Catalonia has been launched, and that the next four years “will be the ones that consolidate territorial cohesion and guarantee coexistence in democracy”.
The PSOE leader stressed that “we cannot repeat the mistakes of the past”, in reference to the prosecution of the Catalan political conflict launched by his predecessor Mariano Rajoy. “It is time for politics, to turn the page, to learn from those mistakes and to look towards a future of coexistence. The time to return to the path that should never have been abandoned, is the time to be coherent and to continue advancing in coexistence ”, he highlighted.
Always without exceeding the constitutional framework, he has warned. “Ours is a project that seamlessly supports the democratic Constitution and that unequivocally advocates for a community of free and equal citizens in rights and duties, who agree to live together under the same rules,” said Sánchez. “A common project that is based on respect, feeling and affection, which defends the union of all Spaniards and assumes territorial diversity, linguistic and cultural plurality with pride, as part of the strength of our country” , has defended.
Sánchez has highlighted the importance of Spain having a new progressive government “as soon as possible” that guarantees the stability of the country, although he has admitted that he cannot ensure when this new executive will be able to form. “It does not depend on me exclusively,” he has pointed out. But he has warned: “I will fight with all my might to make it possible.” “I will do it without delay, as soon as this useless waiting time is over”, which has reproached Feijóo, before the foreseen “failed investiture” of the PP leader, an effort that he has attributed to the “obstinacy and ambition of a single person, more concerned with maintaining his position in a party than with doing something useful for the lives of citizens”. “Subjecting the country to a sterile time, of paralysis and inaction due to purely partisan interests, is certainly not a responsible attitude,” he reproached.
“Even worse is turning Feijóo’s personal frustration, which is legitimate and understandable, into a collective and institutional blockade,” he lamented. In this sense, the acting President of the Government has branded the PP leader’s proposal to let him govern for two years as “an occurrence and eccentricity”, “and then we’ll see.” “The constitutional mandate of a government in a country of 48 million inhabitants cannot be divided in two like a cake,” Sánchez criticized.
The leader of the PSOE has assumed in any case “the difficulty of the challenge we face” to achieve his new investiture. “The task of agreeing and investing a new government is going to be complex and demanding,” he acknowledged. But, although without explicitly citing Carles Puigdemont or the rest of the formations on which his investiture will depend, he has expressly thanked in advance all the political forces with parliamentary representation “for the stature of the State that they are demonstrating in their willingness to negotiate and reach an understanding with the PSOE and also with Sumar.” “There are many things that separate the PSOE from these political forces, but there are also many things that unite us,” he stated. “Plurality, in addition to prosperity, advancement and wealth, can mean stability,” he predicted. “Now, therefore, it is time to prove it for four more years,” Sánchez concluded.
