The Government also ‘loses’ the Board of Spokespersons of Congress

Madrid

Updated:05/07/2022 20:12h

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The fragile moment that the Government is going through is confirmed vote by vote. He suffers in the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies, as in almost the entire legislature, but now he also loses important debates in the Board of Spokespersons, a body where he used to exert a particular roller on the opposition. The great victim of recent dates is the chief executive, Pedro Sanchezzwho will be forced to render more accounts than he would have wished.

The president will appear in Congress to detail his trip to Morocco after his unilateral turn regarding the Sahara. And he will also do so to offer explanations about the listening to dozens of independentistas with the Pegasus ‘spyware’. They are two appointments from which he tried to save the PSOE – also United We Canbound by his coalition agreement–, but before which his parliamentary allies and the right-wing parties joined to force the presence of Sánchez before the Hemicycle.

There are two consecutive weeks with heated debates in the Board of Spokespersons, which meets regularly every Tuesday. And the last two sessions of this body have shown the loneliness of President Sánchez. At the Congress Table, the President of the Chamber, Meritxell Batetit did use the majority with United We Can to carry out the new resolution that regulates the official secrets commission, with which it reduced the majority necessary to appoint each deputy member and, with this, facilitated the entry of ERC and, therefore, first time in that reserved organ, of Bildu.

But that resolution is the only good news -without nuances- that the coalition government has received, and particularly the PSOE, in the last appointments of the Board of Speakers. On April 26, practically all the parties supported the request to appear registered by the PP, which demanded that Sánchez explain in a monographic session his agreement with Morocco to justify that now the Executive, and with United We Can against, recognize the plan of autonomy for the Sahara proposed by the Alaouite kingdom in 2007. Quite a swerve in Spain’s foreign policy.

In that vote they only positioned themselves against Sánchez going to the PSOE and United We Can Congress, although the latter proposed that he be the Foreign Minister, Jose Manuel Albares, who gave the corresponding information to the deputies. EH Bildu, who that week saved the Government’s anti-crisis decree at the same time that he entered the official secrets commission, abstained, although his position was sterile due to the alignment of the rest of the formations.

This week, again, the PSOE has faced a similar situation. On Tuesday, May 3, one day after the urgent press conference offered by Felix Bolanos In the Palacio de la Moncloa, where he denounced the intervention of the cell phones of Sánchez and Minister Margarita Robles, the PSOE and United We Can were left alone in their defense of Sánchez. This time the roles were reversed and it was the PP who supported the request for a registered appearance, on account of the Pegasus case, for ERC, Bildu, Junts, PDECat, CUP, BNG, Más País and Compromís. The rest of the parties, including Vox and Ciudadanos, also positioned themselves in favor of Sánchez himself explaining in Congress what has happened so that, presumably, the terminals of the president and the head of Defense suffer “external and illicit interventions” without being prevented.

problems with partners

Although with a happy ending for its interests, this week the PSOE faced a second vote in the Board of Spokespersons that evidenced the health problems that afflict the ‘Frankenstein Pact’. United We Can allied itself with the separatists and nationalists to demand an investigation commission on the alleged espionage of secessionism, which was only overthrown – despite the fact that the PSOE offered an internal investigation in the CNI and explanations in the official secrets commission – thanks to the opposition.

PP, Vox and Ciudadanos saved the PSOE from a very uncomfortable investigation, with light and stenographers, where there was a risk that State secrets would be publicly aired. The malaise of the independence movement is such that it has opened a well of mistrust in the Government. Some voices suspect that ERC considers the legislature written off and could drop Sánchez.

ERC parliamentary sources, in conversation with this newspaper, contradict that the attitude of the PSOE and of Minister Robles –whose resignation they have repeatedly demanded– makes them fear that the socialists will seek the shore offered by their right Alberto Nunez Feijoo, leader of the opposition and the PP. ERC and Bildu, accommodated in the “address of the State” in which the former vice president installed them paul churches With the approval of Sánchez, they warn that a path with the popular will make their divorce with the Executive inevitable.

The PSOE, however, is striving to rebuild bridges with its allies, no matter how complicated reconciliation is. The Socialists are aware that beyond specific agreements – the General Council of the Judiciary continues with the expired mandate – its legislative agenda is very difficult to agree with the PP. The Democratic Memory Law, for example, is still in a drawer. And the idea of ​​approving it with the right does not exist.

Perhaps for this reason, in the press conference after the Board of Spokespersons, where the request of its partners went ahead, the PSOE spokesman, Hector Gomezfocused all his shots on the PP, which he accused of “irresponsible” with surprising vehemence, while not a single collateral reproach landed on United We Can or its partners.

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