Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo were summoned yesterday in June. To the elections of June 9, 2024 for the renewal of the European Parliament. They will be general elections, this time nothing boring. The future of the European Union will be at stake in a very turbulent world, and in Spain, where 61 deputies will be elected in a single constituency, they will have a plebiscitary profile. These choices will determine the relationship of forces after the psychodrama we are experiencing now.
See you in June. This could be the coldest, most analytical and dispassionate conclusion of the investiture session that began yesterday. The debate had four chapters. Sánchez’s initial presentation. The harsh reply from Núñez Feijóo, with Isabel Díaz Ayuso insulting the socialist candidate from the guest gallery. The provocation of Santiago Abascal, so as not to be below Feijóo. And the nightly exchange of messages between Sánchez and Míriam Nogueras, spokesperson for Junts, after the independentistas of the Waterloo branch expressed their displeasure with the candidate’s initial intervention. They judged that his speech had been disappointing and far from the spirit and letter of the agreement signed last week by both parties.
Junts threatened to abstain in the middle of the afternoon and there was a meeting between Nogueras and the organization secretary of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán. Junts does not want Sánchez to flee from the agreed score. They did not like that he replaced the word negotiation with dialogue, and that he characterized the amnesty as a mere act of forgiveness.
At the stroke of nine at night, Sánchez took the stand to reaffirm that his intention is to comply with the agreement. “Let’s not stop listening to each other. We need time and perspective to heal the wounds. “You have the commitment of the PSOE and mine that we will comply with the agreement.”
In the morning, Sánchez had taken the stand after two months of thick political silence. Since the beginning of September, the general secretary of the PSOE had not gone into the depths of the situation.
Sánchez said yesterday everything that he has kept silent about in two months, during which time the PSOE has been the object of unprecedented pressure to abstain, first, from the investiture of the Popular Party candidate, and then to abstain from any negotiation with the independentistas to retain the presidency of the Government.
Sánchez made a 100% political speech with some easily received social promises, without going into extensive considerations about the country’s economic situation. A speech for June based on the demand for progressive Spain against reactionary Spain, embodied by the confluence of the Popular Party and Vox. Sánchez also announced that Spain will recognize the Palestinian state. Algeria and Morocco will have listened carefully.
In his first intervention, the candidate did not make any mention of the roots of the Catalan issue and did not refer to the negotiation tables agreed with the independentists and a possible consultation or referendum. In other words, Sánchez did not directly refer to the text agreed with Junts and this bothered Carles Puigdemont and his main collaborators. Junts made his displeasure known, messages about possible abstention began to circulate and there were contacts between both groups. At around eight o’clock at night, before the pro-independence groups intervened, there was a ten-minute recess in the parliamentary session that served to adjust the schedules. Junts would intervene at nine at night, the time when the TV3 news program begins. At nine at night, Nogueras warned Sánchez, and he reaffirmed his willingness to comply with the agreement.
The dialectical duel between Sánchez and Núñez Feijóo was tense and intense. The leader of the PP stormed in, thinking about June. Message from the PP: we will not remain silent until elections defeat the socialists. Meanwhile, permanent mobilization. Meanwhile, intensive preparation for the European elections. Meanwhile, he battles in the offices and corridors of Brussels.
The leader of the PP, however, was cautious and did not want to predict pronouncements from the European authorities. No mention of the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The Spanish Popular Party has the full support of Manfred Weber, president of the European People’s Party, but this does not guarantee a censure by the Commission of the Spanish Government. Context fact: Weber and Von der Leyen are at odds. Just yesterday, the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, stated that he does not feel “concerned” about the amnesty law that is being discussed in Spain. “If they believe that the European institutions will reject the amnesty, they do not know Brussels well,” declared yesterday Joaquín Almunia, former secretary general of the PSOE and former vice president of the European Commission. Almunia, one of the veteran socialist leaders who has shown greater prudence in recent months, yesterday showed his agreement with the amnesty law.
Núñez Feijóo climbed everything he can climb and Sánchez made fun of him. “You lost the elections to the extent that you cannot form a majority, and you invented the original theory that ‘I am not president because I don’t want to.'” (Laughter) Isabel Díaz Ayuso was also present in Congress, along with other regional presidents. At one point, she mumbled some words and from the movement of her lips, captured on video, it could be deduced that she was calling the President of the Government “son of a bitch.” After a few hours, her press office confirmed that that had been her expression. “It is the least that can be said to him,” they indicated from that cabinet. “Son of a bitch,” says the president of Madrid DF from the Congress rostrum. There we are. It’s Milei moment. “Left-handed, sons of bitches!” shouts the anarcholiberal candidate for the presidency of Argentina. There we are.
Once again, the Madrid president gave Núñez Feijóo the spotlight. Santiago Abascal, from Vox, could not be less and organized a fight in the afternoon, accusing the PSOE of organizing a coup d’état with the separatists, comparing Sánchez to Hitler. Abascal is one of the preferred allies of Giorgia Meloni, president of the Council of Ministers of the fourth largest economy in the European Union.
Sánchez did not want to respond and it was Patxi López who expressed the indignation of the socialists. The Vox deputies left the chamber, went out into the street to join the people who were demonstrating near Congress, to march all together towards Ferraz Street in Madrid, where a nightly coven of Spanish fascism has been held for ten days. Yesterday Catalan flags were burned. There were police charges and arrests.
There is more. Podemos, whose bases yesterday ratified the positive vote for the investiture, is leaving Sumar. Podemos is already thinking about the European elections to affirm its own identity on the left wing of Parliament. Its five deputies could end up in the mixed group and ERC is courting them. Or rather, Gabriel Rufián is courting them.
The left pillar may be the true weak point of the legislature. Yolanda Díaz, mellow and cautious, laborist and vaporous when it suits her, she begins to have some problem with the text and the context. Her speech has the texture of a sponge cake, while from the stands they shout: “Sons of a bitch.”
