The PSOE and Sumar are giving themselves less than four weeks to complete a government program. Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz agreed this Wednesday, in their first official meeting for the investiture of the socialist candidate, to “intensify and accelerate” negotiations between the two forces in order to seal, during the month of October, an agreement that will allow the formation of a Party enables new board. progressive. The meeting is Sánchez’s first with the factions after receiving orders from the King on Tuesday to attempt an investiture, the deadline for which is November 27, and shows the willingness to reach an agreement with the priority partner, the had made some discrepancies public in the last few days, increasing pressure on the PSOE on certain issues on which they believe they are still very far apart.
“We cannot imagine any other scenario than reaching an agreement that provides for the formation of a new coalition government. But not every government is worth it. We cannot be satisfied with slow legislation,” said Nacho Álvarez, Secretary of State for Social Rights and the main person responsible for the talks with the socialists on the part of the Sumar team, to deputies at the end of the meeting in Congress. “It has to be a government that is not happy with what it did in the last legislative term, but that continues to make progress on social and labor rights, and there are differences,” he explained. The spokeswoman for the federal leadership of the PSOE, Pilar Alegría, was conciliatory: “The path is created by walking, this party and this government have already walked a path since 2018 (…) We have agreed to move forward and to “We must work to have a progressive government program this October,” he stressed. Alegría appeared in Huesca, where she had taken part in an event marking the International Day of Rural Women. From there, he highlighted the atmosphere of “maximum cordiality and trust” in the hour-long meeting between the incumbent president and the second vice president.
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The PSOE, which, unlike Sumar, remains silent in any programmatic discussion, has formed a negotiating commission with the parliamentary groups, which will consist of seven members: María Jesús Montero, deputy secretary general of the PSOE and acting finance minister; Santos Cerdán, Organizing Secretary; Pilar Alegría, spokesperson for the federal leadership and acting minister of education; Félix Bolaños, Acting Minister of the Presidency; Hana Jalloul, Secretary for International Policy and Cooperation of the PSOE; Óscar Puente, national deputy and party spokesman at the failed inauguration of Alberto Núñez Feijóo; and José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, national deputy and likely candidate for the Galician elections. Alegría explained that “depending on the faction and the issues to be discussed, some or others will participate.” Sánchez will meet with all the factions except Vox, and then the negotiating commission will take the lead to continue until an agreement is reached. In addition, the PSOE Secretary General will be in “constant coordination” with Salvador Illa, leader of the PSC, on issues related to Catalonia.
Less working time and more arbitration
Given the secrecy of the PSOE, Sumar has reiterated some of the current points of friction with the partner, such as the shortening of the working day (one of Díaz’s flagships in the 23J campaign), the preparation of a “New Labor Law of the 21st Century”, that the termination regulation, the promotion of arbitration with paid permits or the guarantee of access to housing updated. “We trust that in the next few weeks the positions will converge and we will be able to reach a satisfactory agreement that will lead to the formation of a government that serves the needs of the citizens,” said Nacho Álvarez, who calls for an “ambitious” complete the program. A term that Alegría also used. “These negotiations have allowed us to move forward on territorial issues, but there is still a lot to discuss in the social field,” emphasized Álvarez, wanting to focus the debate on this section.
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Sánchez and Díaz, this Wednesday during their meeting in Congress.Claudio Álvarez
Both parties have maintained discreet contacts for more than two months. The day after the elections, Sumar already called on the socialists to sit down and talk to start these negotiations, and on July 28, Díaz’s team sent a first document to the PSOE, which was then prioritizing the talks to achieve a majority in the Congress to guarantee a board that would allow them to retain the presidency of the House of Commons. Meanwhile, the Socialists do not elaborate on what an amnesty would look like for the defendants in the trial that ERC and Junts are demanding in return for permission to investiture Sánchez, which opened after receiving the king’s order. “We do not operate in obscurantism, in opacity. If an agreement is reached, no citizen will have to worry: we will be transparent,” Alegría said. The independentists’ agenda will predictably determine the deadlines for Sánchez’s debate in Congress. This morning the Consell of the Republic – controlled by former President Carles Puigdemont from Brussels – decided to let its members vote on whether they should fight to block the Socialist’s inauguration between October 17th and 23rd.
Now that it is Feijóo’s turn and with Felipe VI’s instructions, Sumar this week opened the debate on the content to public opinion. The formation, which for the time being does not want to talk about ministries or profiles to fill them, also says that the political differences of opinion with the PSOE are discrepancies between these two formations and that under no circumstances can third organizations be used as a pretext. B. the PNV or the Junts to refuse to agree on a social and labor program on the grounds that these more talkative parties would not accept it.
When she arrived in Congress, the vice president avoided commenting on the desire expressed by socialist sources on Tuesday to restore equality in the next legislative session, a portfolio now in the hands of Podemos. Ione Belarra’s party, which has just five MPs in a 31-member group, called weeks ago for its current leader, Irene Montero, to be the one to continue to lead a future government. “In 2019, the PSOE wanted to have all the portfolios for itself. This is normal, it is what every political party that stands for election would like to have, but the votes are what they are,” minimized the party’s general secretary in statements to the media this Wednesday. The incumbent Minister for Social Rights also called for a “stable and courageous” government. “For it to be stable, Podemos must be represented in it,” he explained.
Sánchez and Illa stage their harmony with a meeting in Ferraz
The relevance that Pedro Sánchez attaches to the relationship with Salvador Illa is maximum. And that’s why, with a meeting this Wednesday afternoon in Ferraz, he wanted to highlight the harmony that both have cultivated for years. The First Secretary of the PSC arrived at the PSOE headquarters shortly before 5:00 p.m. this Wednesday, where the acting President was already waiting for him. The aim of the meeting was to launch the permanent dialogue between Sánchez and Illa and to send the implicit message that the agreements with the Catalan Independents demanding an amnesty for the defendants of the Sánchez investment trial require the approval of the PSC be received. The trust between Sánchez and Illa dates back to the phase when the former decided to run in the primaries for Secretary General of the PSOE in 2017; The chairman of the PSC was then appointed organizational secretary of the PSC and thus Miquel Iceta’s right-hand man. The PSC was one of Sánchez’s big supporters in his re-election as PSOE leader. Sánchez had later installed Illa as health minister in the coalition government with Unidas Podemos between 2020 and early 2022, a period in which he had to manage the Covid pandemic, the worst health emergency in a century. Illa left the government to run in the Catalan elections, in which the PSC was the party with the most votes, as was also the case in the municipal elections of 28-M and the general elections of 23-J.
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