The PNV is running out of patience with Pedro Sánchez and threatens again to break the collaboration agreement that he signed in December 2019 to favor his investiture as Prime Minister. It is not the first time that the Basque nationalists have struck a blow on the table, but this time, sources from the party chaired by Andoni Ortuzar say, it is “very serious.” If the Basque Country does not receive the transfer of the minimum vital income (IMV) “in full and without further delay”, as the parties have agreed on up to three occasions since May 2020, the PNV will feel free to act in Congress.
It is a full-fledged ultimatum, although the PNV does not want it to be understood as a threat. “If the transfer does not materialize in the agreed terms”, point out the same nationalist sources, “our collaboration with the Government will be broken”. Koldo Mediavilla, head of Institutional Policy of the PNV, expressed it publicly a few days ago on Radio Popular: “Either the agreement is fulfilled or our support for the Sánchez government would be absolutely broken.” The matter is complicated because it also coincides with the Government’s search for parliamentary support for the labor reform, in which the Basque nationalists demand that the prevalence of regional agreements be incorporated. Otherwise, they also threaten to vote against it when it is put to a vote in Congress in two weeks.
The discomfort of the nationalists is considerable because it rains it pours, always according to their version of events. The transfer to Euskadi of the management of the IMV, an income against social exclusion that Social Security now processes in this community at the same time that the Basque Government manages its own income guarantee income (RGI), is an agreement that Ortuzar sealed with former Vice President Carmen Calvo in mid-2020, when the Executive was seeking support to prolong the state of alarm.
The transfer of this competence was ratified last November, when Congress approved the law that regulates it with the votes, among others, of the Basque group. Given the delay in fulfilling these commitments, the PNV included the requirement to receive the IMV – together with the relaunch of the high-speed train works – so as not to block the State Budget. Then the nationalists announced that the government had promised to meet their demands at the beginning of this year.
Disgust has spread in the PNV when the Ministry of Inclusion and Social Security, led by José Luis Escrivá, now proposes that the transfer of the IMV be “provisional and conditioned” alleging technical issues. In the Basque formation they say that they are beginning to “be tired” due to the repeated breaches that they blame on the central Executive. “Either it is done in full and definitively, in the terms that were agreed, or the support for Sánchez will pass away,” sources from the management insist. Ortuzar already said it a few months ago when referring to the delay in receiving this matter: “We are not going to act as ETT or accept damaged merchandise.” At this point, the PNV goes hand in hand with its partners in the Basque PSOE, whose Minister of Labor and Employment, Idoia Mendia, also calls for the immediate and complete transfer of the IMV.
The issue has long aroused great hostility between Basque nationalists and Minister Escrivá, who they accuse of hindering the transfer. This clash is complicating the political relationship of the coalition Executive with its preferred partner, different government sources corroborate. In La Moncloa, despite everything, confidence is conveyed in overcoming the disagreement soon, once the “technical details” are resolved.
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The PNV regrets that its loyalty to Sánchez is not being reciprocated to the same extent. The Government itself has admitted in its accountability report that in two years of mandate it has only satisfied 21% of the commitments made with the Basque group.
The discrepancy between the parties also reaches the labor reform. The PNV is “firm” in voting against as long as the prevalence of regional agreements is not included. The matter is being negotiated with the Ministry of Labor, which insists that there are formulas for the agreement. Yolanda Díaz, head of Labor and second vice president, has made it a priority to obtain the support of the PNV and the ERC so as not to resort to Ciudadanos and other small formations, an alternative that the PSOE dislikes less.
The nationalist leadership is for the work of going hand in hand with Sánchez and ensuring that this legislature is exhausted, because “the alternative is worse”, he points out in reference to a possible coming to power of “a PP thrown into the arms of Vox” . This possibility takes away a lot of room for maneuver and the ability to pressure the current Executive, the sources consulted admit, although they warn: “That wild card of the fear that the PP will return is trading increasingly lower. How long are they going to be telling us that if we don’t support them they are going to dissolve the Cortes and the right and the extreme right can come?
The tension with the socialists in Madrid makes the PNV very uncomfortable and does not respond to an electoral calculation, says a spokesman for this party. It is not convenient for the nationalists to present themselves in elections facing the PSOE, when these two formations maintain their agreements in Euskadi quite solidly, where they are united in the Autonomous Government, the three Provincial Councils and the main city councils. The PNV, its leaders insist, would prefer to maintain its “best visiting card,” a proven “ability to reach agreements and give stability to institutions.”
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