The leader of the PP will be presented in the Senate as the best option to get out of the crisis in the face of a government “in an irremediable phase of deterioration”
“The only thing society has to fear is fear itself.” Pedro Sánchez used the famous phrase pronounced by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his inaugural speech as president of the United States in 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, to charge, implicitly, against Alberto Núñez Feijóo: «We are facing a situation difficult but the worst thing we can do before it – he added at the opening ceremony of the new political course – is to let ourselves be carried away by an easy speech to proclaim disaster». His words are intended to show that, as Prime Minister, he sees no reason to be intimidated by a scenario of enormous uncertainty. The acts of him, too.
The chief executive arrives at the restart of parliamentary activity with the polls against him. The latest CIS poll, published in July, gave the PP a two-point lead over the PSOE. But since the resounding electoral defeat suffered by the Socialists in the Andalusian elections in June, Sánchez has dedicated himself to the task of combating discouragement both among voters and among members of his own party and the acceptance of the parliamentary debate with Núñez Feijóo that will be held today in the Senate is part of that same strategy.
In Moncloa they maintain, after a few initial months of trying to take the measure of the opposition leader, that there is no reason to fear him either and that forcing his overexposure can only bring them advantages. «Feijóo -they presume in the president’s environment- lacks packaging and solvency». “We are very interested in the debate because it will allow us to explain what we have done and what we are going to do and, at the same time, show that the PP does not have a project for the country but rather loose and little-knit measures,” they argue. This explains the surprise blow of endorsing, last Thursday, the popular proposal to lower VAT on gas from 21% to 5% from October until the end of the year; a feint to force him to recompose the figure.
In Genoa, on the contrary, they are chested because the Executive has accepted their proposal as it did in June with the reduction of VAT on electricity and also the 200-euro check for the most vulnerable workers. What’s more, they ask you to continue copying them, and now lower the IRPF, deflating the Income Tax rate and lowering the withholdings. “Our measures are at the disposal of the Government and if it applies them, we will support them in Congress,” Núñez Feijóo promised yesterday.
‘Worrying’ winter
The leader of the PP arrives at the debate with the polls in his favor and with an upward trend that the conservative party considers consolidated. The Galician will take advantage of his fifteen minutes in the Upper House -and his five counter-replies- to sell himself as the best option to try to get out of the economic and social crisis caused by the war in Ukraine in front of a Government in “irremediable phase of deterioration”, which is focused, in his opinion, on “short-term politics, and on the search for a headline.” “It is impossible for him to do good politics,” he censured, “when so many efforts are devoted to saving votes at the last minute.”
The impression of the PP is that the Executive seeks to take advantage of its energy management to obtain political gain while hiding other economic indicators that “give reasons for uneasiness” and anticipate a “worrying” winter for thousands of households. In the management, they trust that Sánchez will extend the reduction in VAT on electricity and gas beyond the end of the year, until at least March. “We do not understand that it expires just after winter,” stressed the PP leader at an event in Madrid.
A proposal that will be included in a document Genoa will send to Moncloa this week, as it has already done with its anti-crisis plan, with its proposal on national security or on judicial independence and that, for the moment, have fallen on deaf ears. The conservatives will also propose that all existing energy sources be exploited while the crisis lasts, which is a way of insisting that the life of nuclear power plants be extended; an aid plan for the electro-intensive industry in line with what the German Government has done; or bet on the installation of renewable energies through the de-bureaucratization of the system. “If we don’t do it,” Feijóo asserted, “we will enter an impossible spiral.”
Although the framework predicts a harsh clash with Sánchez, the head of the opposition is confident that the parliamentary duel can serve for a change of climate and a government that agrees “to negotiate with the PP”, although for this it has to “skip the vetoes of its partners. Feijóo, who has little hope that the soufflé of tension will subside, claimed once again his “willingness to negotiate” to carry out this energy plan and urged Sánchez to study the measures because he thinks that “the fall of the Government does not imply the autumn of the country.
A long debate that borders the rest of the forces
Sánchez and Feijóo will star at 4:00 p.m. in a monographic debate in the Senate on the energy crisis and the economic context, an appointment in which the role of Podemos, Vox and Cs will be diluted by not having their own group. The president will speak first, without a time limit, and then the eight groups for 15 minutes. After that there will be a reply from Sánchez and a counter-reply from the groups for five more minutes each.
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