Nobody in the PSOE or the PP expected much from the meeting this Wednesday between Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo. The tension of the previous hours already anticipated a resounding failure. And, without surprises, the meeting, which lasted just under an hour, has once again confirmed the disagreement between the leader of the PSOE and the leader of the PP on the governability of the country: neither of them intends to facilitate the investiture of the other . Feijóo ―who has been commissioned by the King to try it first, although he does not have sufficient support―, has appeared with a written proposal under his arm that refines the request that he reiterates since election night that the PSOE should let him govern for having won the elections. The leader of the PP has proposed to Sánchez a short legislature, of only two years, with a Government presided over by him, and to agree on six State pacts at that time, in exchange for facilitating his investiture. Sánchez, who has not even appeared afterwards to play down the importance of the appointment, has flatly rejected Feijóo’s offer. The socialist spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, has even used sarcasm in her refusal: “The PP has tried to convince us to repeal sanchismo, but it has lacked persuasion.”
Feijóo has proposed an agreement between the two big parties, but he has not proposed a concentration government to Sánchez because he does not believe “that it is possible”, as he himself explained in a press appearance in Congress after the meeting. What he has offered is to include “prestige independents, who are not members of the PP” in that hypothetical cabinet chaired by him. Feijóo has appealed to his status as winner of the 23-J elections so that the PSOE agrees to let him govern, a request that he has outraged the Socialists. According to sources from the federal executive of the PSOE, convened the day before and which was held just after the meeting in Congress ended, the acting president has replied to Feijóo that the PP did not allow the PSOE to govern in the Canary Islands, Extremadura and a hundred of town halls despite the fact that the Socialists were the most voted list there. “We have once again had an example of cynicism and supine hypocrisy,” Alegría reproached. As expected, the PSOE executive has agreed not to support the investiture of the PP candidate.
The most important offer that Feijóo has presented is to govern him for only two years, instead of four; After that period, if the parties considered it so, elections would be held again. An offer that the PSOE did not expect and that they have interpreted as a flight forward and an attempt to buy time to avoid, or at least delay, a new crisis for the leadership of the PP. “If anyone had any doubts that Feijóo is looking for his political survival, with this proposal he clears up all doubts. Feijóo is not thinking about the stability of the country, he is thinking about saving his skin, ”the PSOE spokeswoman attacked. The socialist leadership has received with great surprise this proposal that the legislature be of two years. “You can imagine what I have told him,” Sánchez ironized at one point in the meeting, according to sources present.
In their third meeting as leaders of the two big parties, Feijóo has given Sánchez a five-page document with his proposal, entitled “Agreement for the equality and well-being of all Spaniards”, which is headed with a blank photograph and black of the Moncloa Pacts signed in 1977. An offer to which the PSOE has not given any credibility either due to the blockade of the PP to the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). The body should have been updated in December 2018, that is, its components have had their mandate expired for almost five years. “To offer different pacts you have to have proven credibility and comply with the most sacred, that of the Constitution, and in this country the Judiciary has gone 1,727 days without renewal because the PP has decided so,” said Alegría. The acting president has proposed that, whoever the new president of the Government is, the PP and PSOE formally commit to renewing the CGPJ before December 31 of this year. The PSOE assures that Feijóo has chosen to give him “evasions” on this issue.
Feijóo’s document asks Sánchez to sign six State pacts: democratic regeneration; by the welfare state; for economic recovery; by families; a national water pact and a territorial pact; In none of them does he specify measures, he only exposes them in a generic way. The text also points out that the eventual government chaired by him and supported by the PSOE would reject “the requests for an independence referendum and amnesty expressed by the pro-independence parties.” The Socialists reiterate that they will only reach agreements with ERC or Junts “within the framework of the Constitution.”
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The leader of the PP has politically argued his proposal that “any politician” has “a historical obligation” to “protect the State” from the demands that the independence movement is raising, which in his opinion “are unconstitutional”, in reference to the law of amnesty and the self-determination referendum. In his story, Feijóo considers that the “constitutionalist forces”, among which he now includes the PSOE, Sumar and Vox, and that “have obtained 94% of the vote”, are obliged to agree against the independentistas, who have reached just 6%. “It is incomprehensible that the 6% can condition the governability of the 94% and decide State policies”, he has complained. Therefore, defends Feijóo, “there are only two alternatives: that the governance of Spain be placed in the hands of the independentistas or that it be guaranteed by an agreement between the two big parties.” The leader of the PP has described the context in which Spain is experiencing as “historic” because “the independence movement is emboldened.”
Despite the fact that Feijóo presents the agreement with the PSOE as imperative so that governance does not depend on the independentistas, he has also agreed to sit down and talk with one of those formations, Junts per Catalunya, although the decision is costing him strong tensions in the right. The PP leader has taken pains to explain that, even if he sits down to speak, he will not give in to the requests of the pro-independence supporters, and that he is aware that in that case his investiture will most likely fail. “I know that defending the equality of all Spaniards can prevent him from being the president of the Government. But I will never reach the Government without defending the equality of all Spaniards ”, he insisted.
The leader of the PP has downplayed the repeated slamming of doors that he is receiving from the PNV, the other formation that would have it in his power to make him president and that is not even open to negotiating that investiture. Feijóo maintains that he has not received any refusal from Lehendakari Íñigo Urkullu, although he said yesterday in public that he would speak to him, in his case, after his investiture. “Yesterday [Urkullu] He sent me a WhatsApp to talk from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and I did not see him ”, the popular leader has excused himself, who assures that they have agreed to speak by phone this afternoon. Feijóo intends to meet now with the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, and that of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, although he has not yet set an appointment. He will personally attend the meetings “depending on the dialogue presented by the parties,” sources around him have specified. In other words, he will only attend meetings with the leaders of the formations, which allows him to avoid the awkward photo with Junts. “Feijóo has not made a correct reading of the result of 23-J. The proposal with which he presented himself was to repeal sanchismo and a progressive majority denied it. Now he begs sanchismo… he has 172 votes, the same as he will have on September 26 and 27. And when it fails, which it will fail, we will propose and achieve an investiture that gives stability to our country”, Alegría has sentenced after demanding “respect” from the PP for the PSOE. The first thing that Sánchez has done in his wasteful meeting with Feijóo has been to reprimand him for the appeals of popular leaders to the turncoat of several socialist deputies. “If Feijóo does not agree, we would ask him to amend his spokespersons,” Alegría added.
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