As soon as Wednesday’s extraordinary plenary session ended, without yet digesting the defeat, several of the Government ministers were eager to monopolize the microphones with the intention of pointing out the People’s Party as the sole culprit of letting the revaluation of the … pensions. “What a patriotic gesture,” Óscar Puente ironically noted. They had lost the political battle, but it was time to win the story. A story that was built in those first minutes and that had its continuation on social networks, where the entire Executive downloaded its arguments to convince pensioners and citizens that the fault that retirees’ pay did not increase and that transport bonuses disappeared was not theirs, forced to rally support for their decrees, but that of the opposition.
In front, leading that critical blockburst in the Popular Party, which anticipated the Government’s movement on Wednesday by registering a bill that only included the increase in pensions and another with aid for those affected by the dana. A gesture that was repeated this Thursday with another one for transport bonuses, which will be joined, as ABC learned, by a last initiative that will include the update of deliveries on account of the financing system for the 2025 financial year so that the autonomies do not lose ten million euros. “If the Government wanted, it could raise pensions,” say PP sources, who use this route as an example, although they understand that the fastest thing would be the approval by the Council of Ministers of new individual decrees that do not contain any of the measures that They led PP, Vox and Junts to vote against.
“If they bring the clean decree, we will approve it today,” said a person from the national leadership of the PP, where they continue to be astonished by what happened. Above all, for that attempt to blame the opposition of his own inability to assemble a majority in Congress. «The only thing the Government wants is to cloud the atmosphere and deceive pensioners. Unfortunately, he is using them as human shields and for us they are sacred. This is unacceptable and petty. It’s immoral. They cannot be used as hostages. We say yes to raising pensions and no to giving privileges to parliamentary allies; We say yes to the decrease in transport and no to the increase in VAT on food; We say yes to Valencia and no to the occupation. If Sánchez wants, he has our measures already registered in the chamber and we can approve them now,” Alberto Núñez Feijóo explained this Thursday during a visit to Fitur in which he visited different positions and shared a talk with some regional barons.
One of them confessed to ABC that the situation is extreme and that the legislature has no way forward. “They are too afraid of the Catalans,” he explained in reference to the Government’s manifest care in targeting only the PP and Vox and not so much Junts, the most fractious investiture partner. The one that keeps Pedro Sánchez on the ropes and that, by the way, also urges him to bring to Congress two decrees with the revaluation of pensions and the bonus of public transport. His spokesperson in the Lower House, already in the heat of the parliamentary debate, Míriam Nogueras, told the president that her party supports both things.
“Emotional blackmail”
This Thursday, the fugitive Carles Puigdemont repeated it on his social networks and his general secretary, Jordi Turull, in an interview on 3Cat collected by Ep. In fact, Turull stated that if the Government does not approve these measures “in the next few hours”, pointing to an extraordinary Council of Ministers that it refuses to convene, Junts will present its own proposals in Congress to shake off the “emotional blackmail” to which, according to this group, the Executive submits them. In January of last year, in another omnibus decree in which Junts abstained, Vice President María Jesús Montero promised the neoconvergents that something like this would not happen again, as explained by Turull, who revealed that on Monday, two days before the resounding defeat of the Moncloa, they told the PSOE that if they presented these two issues separately, they would have their support.
But the temporizing of Moncloa, which seems to wait for citizens to notice the consequences of the repeal of its measures before rescuing them, does not convince its leftist allies either. Not even his coalition partner, Sumar, who, although he avoids direct criticism of the PSOE, makes it clear that the priority must be to restore the social shield of which they boast so much. «What must be done is to ensure that the measures are resumed as soon as possible. To achieve this, it is essential that we negotiate insistently and try to approve them as soon as possible. The interests of the people must come before everything,” emphasize party sources consulted by this newspaper.
Sumar asks that social issues be taken up again “as soon as possible” and emphasizes that “the interests of the people” must come first.
ERC, Bildu and Podemos, although with nuances, are also in favor of approving an “urgent” decree (or several) that recovers the decaying social measures. The Republicans and the Aberzales blame the PP and Junts for what happened, they agree on that, but they ask the Government to approve all the decrees that are necessary so that the greatest possible amount of aid is saved “without the excuses”, they say, which puts the right.
«Let the PSOE approve separate decrees. If it is necessary for us to spend an entire afternoon voting on everything, let everyone be portrayed,” ERC tells this newspaper. “We are committed to working tirelessly so that all the measures of the social decree are approved as soon as possible,” add Bildu sources. The Aberzales launched a press release in which they called the position of PP, Vox and Junts in the omnibus decree “irresponsibility” and also joined the PNV for also contributing, along with the previous three, to overturning the energy tax. “You are not harming the Government, you are harming the people,” they say, and ask that the Executive put to a vote not only the revaluation of pensions and the public transport bonus, matters whose validation would be guaranteed if the Government puts them to a vote. without additions, but also the prohibition of evictions of vulnerable families and the increase in the interprofessional minimum wage, among other things.
The role of the Government
The Government could already approve a new royal decree law, or two different ones, with the revaluation of pensions and the public transport bonus, and both would be back in force. They should go through Congress again in a month, but their validation is guaranteed with the yes of PP and Junts.
Two possible alternatives
The PP has registered three bills and is preparing a fourth to recover those two things, aid to the dana and payments on account to the communities. Junts will also move forward with its own proposal if the Government does not do so “in the next few hours.”
Demands on your left
ERC, Bildu and Podemos, in addition to these two issues, put other repealed issues on the table, such as the increase in the minimum wage, the prohibition of evictions and supply cuts to vulnerable people, the extension of the social electricity bonus, resources for mental health, aid to farmers affected by climate change… They ask the Government to bring them back to Congress so that each one can “represent themselves.”
Podemos directly urges us to approve an “urgent decree” and “as soon as possible” to avoid “the very serious social damage” that would result from the decline of two specific issues: the subsidy of public transport and the extension of the suspension of precarious evictions. “It would not be understood that a Government that calls itself progressive would drop the social shield that protects the most vulnerable,” they say from Ione Belarra’s party.
The Government can approve one or several different decrees to recover the social measures, which would be in force again immediately, although they should receive the approval of Congress within a month, but it remains to be seen if it chooses to let the time for citizens to notice the effects of the repeal of their omnibus package. Moncloa has already found a culprit: the PP.
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