Pedro Sánchez has assured that he feels “a healthy envy” for the absolute parliamentary majority enjoyed by the Prime Minister of Portugal, the socialist António Costa, with whom he starred in the 34th Spanish-Portuguese summit this Wednesday in Lanzarote. “In Spain, the parliamentary reality is much more fragmented,” he argued. With the barely 154 seats that the coalition between the PSOE and Unidas Podemos now has, the head of the Executive has warned, “not only are we obliged to agree among ourselves, but also later we have to go out into the parliamentary arena to agree with different parliamentary groups.
But despite this parliamentary minority of the government coalition, Sánchez stressed that more than 200 joint parliamentary initiatives have been approved during this legislature, three consecutive general state budgets, more than 15 agreements with social agents, the labor reform, the minimum vital income or, now, the pension reform. “With all the difficulties that lie ahead, which are obviously many, this coalition government is doing good things for our country,” he defended.
The coalition between the PSOE and Unidas Podemos will not only not be broken before this legislature runs out at the end of the year, despite the clash over the reform of the law of only yes is yes and other internal discrepancies, but Sánchez has assured that aspires to reissue it after the next general elections. “We aspire not only to revalidate the majority in the next elections, but even to expand it, so that we can consolidate progressive policies”, he assured. “And when I say consolidate that parliamentary majority, I logically say it with our government partners, who are represented here by Yolanda Díaz,” said the chief executive in reference to United We Can, with the second vice president, still pending to make her platform official. electoral under the name of Sumar, sitting in the first row of the act held in the Jameos del Agua in Lanzarote.
But the difficulties of articulating parliamentary majorities with the investiture block have just given a good account that ERC and EH Bildu have knocked down the reform of the so-called ‘gag law’ in the Interior commission of Congress. And Sánchez has charged harshly against these formations that usually maintain their majority in this legislature. “It is regrettable that both ERC and Bildu in this case have acted by electoral calculation,” he lamented. The agreement reached by the PSOE and Unidas Podemos before the initiative promoted by the PNV, he highlighted, “put an end to all those articles that were identified with the gag law.” “There is something even worse than making calculations, and that is to err in the calculation. And in this case, both ERC and Bildu have erred in the calculation ”, he denounced.
Sánchez has also taken the opportunity to clear up the question of when he will undertake the imminent government crisis that he plans to relieve the ministers Reyes Maroto and Carolina Darias, who will run as PSOE candidates for the mayoralties of Madrid and Las Palmas, respectively, in the municipal elections on May 28. “The government crisis will be after the motion of no confidence, not before,” she announced. In other words, the replacements will take place after the debate and vote next week – on March 21 and 22 – of the initiative promoted against him by the extreme right of Vox. And this crisis will not go beyond replacing Maroto and Darias. “It will be limited to the two ministers, whom once again I recognize that they have done an extraordinary job and I will miss them personally and politically,” he assured.
On the other hand, the head of the Executive has signed the agreement for the pension reform, signed today with the unions UGT and CC.OO., after the pact between the PSOE and Unidas Podemos, which will be approved as a decree law, probably tomorrow, at an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers. At the same time, Sánchez has charged against the opposition to this reform expressed both by the leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and by the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi. “The economic right and the political right did not believe that we were going to be able to modernize the pension system in our country. And we have achieved it, we have achieved it ”, he congratulated himself.
Sánchez thus celebrated the internal agreement in the coalition government between the PSOE and Unidas Podemos, and the pact with the trade unions. “It also seems that we can count on a parliamentary majority that allows it to prosper within the Cortes Generales”, he has already warned. And he has indicated that he is not surprised by the PP’s opposition to this reform. “It was evident that after the positioning of the great employers, the political right was going to announce its vote against,” he criticized. “There is also no great news in seeing a PP that once again votes against social advances,” he denounced.
“It is not surprising, because the big employers have already announced their vote against. Many times it is not known who marks the step to whom, if the political right to the economic right, or the economic right to politics. But what is clear is that there is total and absolute harmony and synchrony between both terminals, the political right and the economic right”, Sánchez has stirred up. But he has defended this pension reform: “We are in luck”, he has settled.
