With or without amnesty, with or without budgets… with or without Junts. “The duration of the legislature is not decided by any political group. The duration of the legislature is decided by the President of the Government, and that is why we will be governing for three and a half years,” the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, stated bluntly yesterday in Ser.
Pedro Sánchez, they say in the Executive, has not yet given up any battle as lost. But they also warn that the president does not foresee in any case dissolving the Cortes and precipitating new general elections for next June, when the European elections will take place. “No, that depends on the boss, and the boss pushes forward,” they corroborate. And this was made clear to them when Sánchez left the chamber on Tuesday, with the notable displeasure that reflected on his face after Junts voted against the Amnesty law, which leads to another month of negotiations before the norm, if renews the agreement, it can be voted on again in Congress.
In the Government they do not put their hand on the fire regarding the position of Carles Puigdemont’s party on the new general budgets of the State for this year. “Let’s see how they breathe,” they claim. But in the Executive they try to preserve and keep afloat, at all costs, the course of the legislature, still newborn. With or without budgets.
Junts’ decision to prolong the processing of the amnesty, in any case, also complicates and delays the planned calendar for new public accounts to come to light – for which the support of Puigdemont’s training is equally essential – that guarantee political and economic stability to Sánchez’s new mandate.
The Executive’s forecast, until Junts consummated its vote against the Amnesty law this Tuesday in Congress, was that the new grace measure would be definitively approved, despite the delay imposed by the PP in the Senate, in the first week of April. A date that was planned to coincide on the calendar with the approval by the Council of Ministers of new budgets that, after parliamentary processing, would receive the green light already in June.
The Executive assumes that this calendar is now up in the air, waiting to see how the negotiations with Junts are redirected. The first vice president of the Government and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, insisted yesterday that she is not throwing in the towel. “The will of this Government is to approve new public accounts,” she stressed on TVE.
But he came to recognize that Junts’ position could complicate, or even dynamite, this plan. “It is still premature to know what approach Junts per Catalunya is going to take,” acknowledged Montero, who reiterated his desire for dialogue.
But he also warned: “Let’s not forget that the budgets are in force, they have been extended from the beginning of the year.” The 2023 accounts, which the Government managed to approve for the third consecutive year in the previous legislature by an absolute majority, are currently still in force, once they were extended on January 1.
And, if there is no other option, these budgets can continue to be extended throughout 2024, because the Executive affirms that Sánchez will not blow up a legislature that cost so much to launch, thanks precisely to the agreement with Junts on the amnesty. Although Montero did not want to anticipate events: “Everything – he prescribed – in its time.” Nor to place itself in a scenario of total rupture with Junts, by pointing out that there continues to be a “will for dialogue” on both sides.
But the vice president also forcefully defended the Government’s position against Junts’ demand for a “comprehensive amnesty.” “Not any amnesty text is constitutional,” she warned. And maintaining “legal certainty” in the norm, she assured, is “essential,” so that it can later pass the filter of the Constitutional Court or European bodies.
Montero, however, trusted that the conversations with Junts will be redirected: “There must always be room for negotiation, when there is a clear desire for dialogue on both sides there are always conditions to continue incorporating issues.” “We trust that JxCat will reconsider,” he insisted.
But Junts does not give in either. The general secretary of the independence party, Jordi Turull, seemed to once again use his threat of the “colorín colorado” yesterday, seeing the legislature in check if the Government does not agree to his demands. “If the PSOE does not move and does not want there to be a comprehensive Amnesty law, for everyone, and of immediate application – Turull warned in RAC1 –, it is because it does not want to comply with the Brussels agreement.” That is, the one that allowed Sánchez’s investiture. And as long as this issue is not resolved, he noted in reference to the State budgets, “we cannot consider taking the next step.”
