2023-10-04 15:18:36
The PSOE and Sumar give themselves less than four weeks to close a Government program. Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz agreed this Wednesday in their first official meeting to address the investiture of the socialist candidate to “intensify and accelerate” the negotiations between both forces to seal an agreement throughout the month of October that will allow the formation of a new progressive Executive. The meeting is Sánchez’s first with the parliamentary groups after on Tuesday he received the order from the King to attempt an investiture that has a deadline of November 27 and shows a willingness to reach an understanding with the priority partner, who in recent days had made public some discrepancies, increasing pressure on the PSOE on certain issues on which, they claim, they are still very far apart.
“We do not conceive of any other scenario other than reaching an agreement that reissues a coalition government. But not just any government is worth it. We cannot settle for legislating at a slow pace,” Nacho Álvarez, Secretary of State for Social Rights and the main person in charge of the conversations with the socialists on behalf of the Sumar team, denounced at the end of the meeting in the Congress of Deputies. “It has to be a Government that is not satisfied with what it has done in the previous legislature, but that continues to advance in terms of social and labor rights, which is where we have differences,” he specified. The spokesperson for the federal leadership of the PSOE, Pilar Alegría, has been conciliatory: “The path is made by walking, this party and this Government have already walked a path since 2018 (…) We have agreed to move forward, accelerate the work to be able to to have a progressive government program this October,” he highlighted. Alegría appeared in Huesca, where she had participated in an event marking the International Day of Rural Women. From there, she highlighted the atmosphere of “maximum cordiality and maximum trust” in the one-hour meeting held by the acting president and second vice president.
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The PSOE, which unlike Sumar remains silent about any programmatic discussion, has created a negotiating commission with the parliamentary groups that will be made up of seven members: María Jesús Montero, deputy secretary general of the PSOE and acting Minister of Finance; Santos Cerdán, Secretary of Organization; Pilar Alegría, spokesperson for the federal leadership and acting Minister of Education; Félix Bolaños, acting Minister of the Presidency; Hana Jalloul, Secretary of International Policy and Cooperation of the PSOE; Óscar Puente, national deputy and party spokesperson in the failed investiture of Alberto Núñez Feijóo; and José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, national deputy and probable candidate in the Galician elections. Alegría explained that “some or others will attend depending on the parliamentary group and the issues to be discussed.” Sánchez will meet with all the groups except Vox, and then the negotiating commission will take over to continue until an agreement. In addition, the general secretary of the PSOE will be “in permanent coordination” with Salvador Illa, leader of the PSC, for issues related to Catalonia. The importance that Sánchez gives to the relationship with Illa is such that both will meet this Wednesday afternoon at the PSOE headquarters on Ferraz Street in Madrid.
Faced with the secrecy of the PSOE, Sumar has reiterated some of the points of friction with the partner at this time, such as the reduction of the working day (one of Díaz’s flags in the 23-J campaign), the preparation of a “new labor statute of the 21st century” that updates the regulation of dismissal, the promotion of conciliation with paid permits or the guarantee of access to housing. “We trust that over the next few weeks the positions will come closer and we will be able to have an agreement that is satisfactory and will give rise to the birth of a Government useful for the needs of the citizens,” said Nacho Álvarez, who demands, to This, closing an “ambitious” program. A term that Alegría has also used. “This negotiation has allowed us to advance on territorial issues, but there are still many things to discuss in the social sphere,” Álvarez insisted, wanting to focus the debate on this section.
Both parties have been maintaining contacts discreetly for more than two months. The day after the elections, Sumar already demanded that the socialists sit down and talk to start these negotiations and on July 28, Díaz’s team sent a first document to the PSOE, which at that time gave priority to talks to guarantee a majority in the Congress Board that would allow them to retain the presidency of the lower house. Meanwhile, the socialists do not go into detail about what an amnesty would be like for those accused of the process that ERC and Junts demand in exchange for allowing Sánchez’s investiture, which was opened after receiving the order from the King. “We do not move in obscurantism, in opacity. When an agreement is reached, let no citizen worry: we will be transparent,” said Alegría. The agenda of the independentistas 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 – has decided to put its members to a vote on whether to campaign to block the socialist’s investiture between October 17 and 23.
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Now that Feijóo’s turn has passed and with the order from Felipe VI, Sumar has opened the debate on the contents to public opinion this week. In the formation, which does not want to talk for now about ministries or profiles to occupy them, they also slip that the political disagreements with the PSOE are discrepancies between these two formations and that in no case can third organizations be used as an excuse, as they can be the PNV or Junts, to refuse to agree to a social and labor program alleging that these parties, more talkative, would not accept it.
Upon her arrival in Congress, the vice president has avoided taking a position on the desire expressed by socialist sources on Tuesday to recover Equality in the next legislature, a portfolio now in the hands of Podemos. Ione Belarra’s party, which has only five deputies in a parliamentary group of 31, requested weeks ago that its current leader, Irene Montero, be the one to continue leading in a future Government. “In 2019 the PSOE wanted all the portfolios for itself. That is normal, it is what any political party that runs for election would like, but the votes are what they are,” the general secretary of the party minimized this Wednesday in statements to the media. The acting Minister of Social Rights has also called for a “stable and courageous” Government. “For it to be stable, Podemos has to be represented in it,” she stated.
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