Pedro Sánchez is one step away from forming his new government. Once the agreement with the Catalans on the amnesty is finalized, the socialist leader will be appointed next week. And Spain will – after the Polish elections – deal a further blow to the Melonian project of an axis between the Popular Party and the Conservatives to overthrow the alliances in the European Union.
To be clear, the price Sánchez will pay for governing will be very high. Spain has never been so divided since the civil war. Right-wing marchers protest in front of the Socialist headquarters. Vox boss Santiago Abascal accuses the PSOE of carrying out a coup. “An infamous pact,” tweeted one of Vox’s founders, Alejo Vidal-Quadras; then he went to mass in the Cathedral of Madrid; At the exit, a motorcyclist hidden under his helmet, possibly a contract killer, shot him in the face and fled. Vidal-Quadras is out of danger, the media is not linking his injury to politics; but surely the tension is at its peak.
Sánchez had to concede something to every ally. For the Catalans, an amnesty for the rebels who tried to secede and a willingness to hold a consultative referendum. The radical Sumar coalition includes shortening working hours. The left-wing Basques of Bildu demand that the ETA prisoners be brought closer to home, today prisoners in prisons up to a thousand kilometers away; the right-wing Basques are content with a tax break on energy profits (the CEO of the oil giant Repsol, Josu Jon Imaz, is the former president of the Basque nationalist party).
Obviously the most controversial agreement is the one with Carles Puigdemont’s Catalan independents, who announced: either a referendum for a free Catalonia or nothing. But the dissolution of the Cortes and new elections do not suit Sánchez and him; That is why the government is created. Puigdemont asks for an international guarantor (someone in Barcelona wants to contact the Community of Sant’Egidio) to monitor compliance with the pact with Sánchez. However, this presents a problem: accepting external control would be tantamount to acknowledging that Catalonia enters into agreements with Spain as if it were with a foreign state. The law appeals to the king; but Felipe VI. is determined to remain neutral, after all, he has a good relationship with Sánchez (the monarch uses the prime minister’s first name and is given the first name).
Spain should have been the first part of the sovereignist plan: to replace the Socialists in alliance with the Popular Party at the head of the European Union. In fact, the Partido Popular was the first party in the July 23 elections; but his allies at Vox fared less well than expected. The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, did not gain confidence. The ball thus returned to Sánchez.
It is not just an internal Spanish problem. Also in the Polish elections, the party of Jaroslaw Kacinsky, ally of Giorgia Meloni, took first place, but has no partner to form a government: Warsaw changes direction, the pro-European Donald Tusk returns to power, who is a member of the People’s Party However, it is oriented towards the liberal center, not the populist right.
All of this suggests that there will be no change of alliance in Brussels. The sovereignist wave remains strong. People in Europe are demanding more national protection. But they have no desire to embark on an impossible return to the past. Young and urban voters in particular place great value on rights and freedoms. And he knows, or at least feels, that sovereignism means the end of Europe; And Spain, Poland, France and Germany alone don’t count much more than anything else in the global world. This applies even more to Italy.
Now Giorgia Meloni can insist on her game plan. Or he can work to build a moderate party that will inevitably face the socialists in Europe. Many observers claim that the Prime Minister has already chosen the second path. But he hasn’t said it yet; on the contrary, he has always ruled out collaboration with the socialists. For Vox, Sánchez is a “notorious”, a “traitor” who does business with terrorists and betrays the unity of Spain. However, at the next European summit, Meloni risks being ahead of Sánchez. While his ally and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini claims the alliance with Marine Le Pen and Alternative for Germany.
What is the Italian national interest? Which Europe will emerge from next June’s vote? Will our government continue to support Ursula von der Leyen as head of the European Commission or does it have another candidate in mind? The campaign for the European elections is not only carried out with propaganda, but also with political decisions.