Pedro Sánchez did not appear as president to the Congress of the European Socialist Party as intended, a date marked in red in La Moncloa and Ferraz, but he arrived with the investiture already in his pocket after signing on Thursday an agreement with Junts, the most difficult pact politicians at all. The continuity of a socialist president was a relief for European social democracy after the spread of conservative governments in alliances that included the far right. Losing power in Spain, the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy and the EU’s fourth-most populous country, would have been a catastrophe for European socialists, who suffered an unforeseen blow this week with the resignation of António Costa. Portugal’s prime minister, in office since 2015, is under investigation by the Supreme Court in connection with a corruption scandal, and his ouster makes Sánchez the Social Democratic prime minister or president – there are five in total, apart from Germany, Denmark and Romania from Spain and Portugal – with the longest mandate in Europe.
Sánchez has called for “reason and restraint” after a week of protests with violent episodes outside the PSOE headquarters. At the end of the Congress of the European Socialist Party in Málaga, the Secretary General of the PSOE called on Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party, which has called for demonstrations in all provincial capitals on Sunday, to “accept the results of the polls on the legitimacy of the progressive coalition government”, which he will preside after his inauguration next Wednesday and next Thursday. “I ask you to have the courage necessary to say no to the hard embrace of the extreme right and to abandon the reactionary wave that is heading towards the abyss today,” said the incumbent president.
Around 250 people opposed to the amnesty of the defendants in the trial, which Junts and ERC demanded in return for allowing Sánchez’s re-election, demonstrated in front of the Trade Fair and Congress Palace amid tight security measures. Santos Cerdán, organizing secretary of the PSOE, blamed former government president José María Aznar for the harassment of socialist townhouses: “We are very concerned about this climate that the right and the extreme right are creating. I want to remember how it all started, after some statements from Aznar in which he said that everyone should do what they have to do to stop this government. The words of some leaders are very dangerous and here Aznar bears a great responsibility for what is happening.” “Today the most nostalgic extreme right of this cruel Franco dictatorship shows symbols and proclamations of a dark past of Spain. A past that we thought had been overcome, the echoes of which reverberate today in the complicity of the traditional right,” said Sánchez.
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“The government will move forward with the support of 179 votes. And they are all legitimate representatives of the will of the people. With this strength and legitimacy, which gives us the power to agree with everyone, we will continue to govern for four more years for all Spaniards, with social progress, with coexistence and with institutional stability,” noted the Secretary General of the PSOE. Sánchez, who has also held the presidency of the Socialist International for a year, will rely on the support of the deputies of his coalition partners Sumar (31), ERC (7), Junts (7), EH Bildu (6), PNV (5), BNG ( 1) and Canarian Coalition (1). The positive vote of this last party, which also voted for the failed inauguration of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has allowed it to form a transversal bloc that includes center-right parties, which includes the PNV against the failed inauguration of the leader belongs to the PP for not receiving more support than that of Vox and UPN.
Pedro Sánchez, during his speech at the Congress of the European Socialist Party.Paco Puentes
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“Spain will again have a progressive coalition government in the coming years, and this government will have the leadership of the PSOE,” cheered Sánchez, who met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Prime Minister before the conclusion of the Social Democratic conclave. The Danish Mette Frederiksen and her counterparts Robert Abela (Malta) and Marcel Ciolacu (Romania).
“This victory is not just reserved for the Spanish socialists, it is a triumph and a hope for all progressives in Europe. On July 23rd we were able to stop the reactionary wave in Spain against a disoriented right and in June we will stop this wave by winning the European elections,” Sánchez added at an event also attended by third vice-president Teresa Ribera Minister José Manuel Albares. , Luis Planas, Diana Morant and José Manuel Miñones. “Spain can only be governed if the country’s political pluralism is recognized. The PP can only agree with Vox. “The PSOE is the only force that can reach an agreement with the rest of the political forces, except with Vox,” Sánchez said in an event that, despite the muted euphoria of having secured the investiture, was marred by the absence of the prime minister from Portugal.
Sánchez, who since his arrival in La Moncloa in June 2018 forged an alliance with Costa in which the Iberian Peninsula became the bastion of European socialists, “extended a hug on behalf of the European socialist family to a great companion and great socialist.” ” Costa resigned on Tuesday “to preserve the dignity of democratic institutions” after the scandal that also affected his chief of staff and a businessman very close to him. “I am calm in the judgment of my conscience, not only in relation to illegal acts but also in relation to reprehensible ones,” he claimed in his resignation.
The success of 23-J has led the PSOE leader, who has headed the Socialist International for a year, to export the Socialists’ motto in the last parliamentary elections, “Forward,” to the entire social democratic family. “Forward Europe, forward socialism!” concluded Stefan Löfven, former Swedish Prime Minister and President of the European Socialist Party. Bella Ciao, the anthem of the Italian resistance fighters against the Nazis and fascists in World War II, played as a handful of demonstrators outside continued their chants against Sánchez.
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