Long faces at the end of the first meeting of the new commission of investigation on the so-called Sewers of the State in the Congress of Deputies. The political groups that intended to approve this Thursday the list of those appearing so that the commission could start rolling have already seen how everything has blown up — for the moment — into the air. Each group came with its own proposal —without consensus—, so at the time of the vote, none of the lists has achieved sufficient support to move forward. A maximum period of 15 days is now open for them to negotiate.
Yesterday afternoon, each of the parliamentary groups presented their own list of appearing parties. Sources close to the negotiations explain that before registering the proposals, the government partners CPSOE and Unidas Podemos spent hours trying to reach an agreement that turned out to be impossible.
The Socialists are betting, according to their list, to focus on Operation Catalonia —launched by the political police to prepare reports against pro-independence leaders— and on the alleged parapolice action to cause the closure of the Private Bank of Andorra. However, the Unidas Podemos list broadens the focus to other alleged cases of political corruption, including names of allegedly complicit journalists.
For this reason, at the end of today’s meeting, the socialist Felipe Sicilia has expressed his discomfort at the blocking of the list that his group has presented, full of names that also appear in the rest of the proposals. The intention of the PSOE was to approve this first list of appearing parties with the possibility of expanding it in the future, but with the priority that the work begin now, since the legislature is on its last breath. The PSOE list has only been supported by the PNV.
