When Junts per Catalunya voted on Tuesday against the wording of the Amnesty law proposal that reached the full Congress, returning the rule to negotiation in the justice commission but also threatening the approval of the first general budgets of the ‘ State of this fledgling legislature, there were many who saw the very survival of Pedro Sánchez’s new mandate at risk.
But the president of the central government wanted to defuse the threat immediately, and yesterday he expressly guaranteed a long and stable legislature, during the rally he led in Ourense. “We have 1,260 days before the end of the legislature”, assured Sánchez, and once again bet on a long-term mandate, like the previous one, despite the uncertainties faced by his parliamentary minority and the dependence of the formation of Carles Puigdemont not only to approve the amnesty, but also the public accounts of this 2024 and any initiative he wants to undertake. These 1,260 days mean almost three and a half years of the legislature ahead.
And the head of the Spanish Executive assured that he will not sit idly by: “We will do great things during the 1,260 days we have left of the legislature”. And he said with irony: “We will be cut short, because we have so many things to do and change to move forward. But Feijóo and Abascal will have an extraordinarily long time.” This is democracy, he alleged, with reference to the offensive strategy of the leaders of the Popular Party and Vox. “Useful policy in the face of the sterile cry of the right and the ultra-right, to change people’s lives for the better”, countered Sánchez.
Despite the extreme complexity of the current legislature, the president assured that all the efforts to which he is subjected are worth it. “How can it be that it is not worth revaluing pensions, raising the interprofessional minimum wage or approving a parity law? It’s totally worth it! All the effort we make to negotiate, to agree, to dialogue, to advance the social majority of our country is worth it”, he cried in a rally that gathered 1,200 supporters to accompany the socialist candidate for the Xunta, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro.
Sánchez gave as an example of the importance of continuing the legislature the fruits already achieved during the barely two months that have passed since his last investiture, and what is to come. And he thus announced that the Council of Ministers will approve on Tuesday a new increase in the interprofessional minimum wage to 1,134 euros per month, that is, 5% more.
The president, however, called for “patience” in the socialist ranks. “A lot of patience, because there are incomprehensible things”, he admitted, in possible reference to Junts’ negative vote on the amnesty, which the central government is now trying to redirect by exploring new ways for the agreement. And he received “conviction in substance and temperance in form”, especially in the face of “the rampant opposition”.
Sánchez vindicated his management in the face of the political, territorial, social and economic crisis that he ensured he found himself in 2018 after arriving in Moncloa. “We have made Spain go in the right direction”, he defended.
