The Government reinforces the Moncloa communication to sell management and European funds

The government wants count everything you do to arrive at the elections with a long list of accomplished objectives. This week the BOE published a internal restructuring to create in the area of ​​communication a information coordination department, which will ensure the unification of all the institutional information of the Executive. The Council of Ministers approved on Tuesday its regulatory plan for 2022, 92 laws (11 organic and 81 ordinary), 40% of them linked to the recovery plan, and 276 royal decrees (that is, executive agreements without the force of law). A “expansion of rights and freedoms” and a “second economic modernization” of the country, as explained by the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, that the Government does not want to go unnoticed.

These two years will be devoted to selling to public opinion the social democratic agenda and the transformative impact of European funds. This last matter, capital for the balance of Pedro Sánchez’s legislature, which Moncloa will try to patrimonialize, despite the crusade undertaken by the PP and by the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, which has taken the distribution of EU funds between the communities to the Supreme Court. this same friday Pablo Casado has already warned that it will move this war to Europe if there is no “transparency” in distribution.

Closeness and management

With the purpose of facing the electoral race, Sánchez has also placed control of the strategy unit directly in the hands of Antonio Hernando and has moved the one for communication with citizens to the Department of Analysis and Studies. In Moncloa they assure that they have only been “adjustments”, that they wanted to make with respect to the inherited structure and that in the case of the president’s cabinet it has no more significance. But about These tweaks cement the will to dedicate these years to selling the Government’s action and the European funds, which will also insist on bringing the figure of the Chief Executive closer to the citizens.

Although it is the institutional communication of the Executive, United We Can has had nothing to do with these changes. In fact, no one from this formation works in the Secretary of State. Despite the controversy generated by the interview with the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Alberto Garzón, in The Guardian, and his statements that the meat produced by industrial farming is of “worse quality” than that from extensive farming, the feeling in the socialist block of the Government is that the coordination with your partners “works” and it’s “better” than when it was Pablo Iglesias.

Better relation

His departure was experienced in the PSOE as a relief, which has contributed to improving the perception of the Executive itself. His membership in the cabinet alone, state government sources, already caused a negative view of the government. Everything is “easier”, they ratify, with Yolanda Díaz. And the proof is that the labor reform has been completed, the Minimum Wage has been raised again and an agreement on housing has been reached. They recognize that in many of these issues there have been internal problems. But they remain in that they have finally overcome.

A setback -the difference in positions- that, they point out, has not existed in the controversy of the macrogranjas. There the friction has been produced by some demonstrations that the PSOE considers “unfortunate” and that’s why he went out to qualify them. Government sources indicate that they previously knew about the interview with The Guardian and that they saw the result. They emphasize that it did not have any impact until the PP launched itself on that subject. And that since the matter exploded on January 5 they have known at all times the steps that Garzón has taken in other media.

This vision contrasts with the one that this week offered to El Periódico de España United We Can sources, who did point to a fragmented communication, from one party to another, which will also be influenced both by the electoral call for 13F and by the beginning of the entire electoral cycle. In Moncloa they recognize that “the coalition government has its complexities”. “Different voices and positions on some issues that makes coordination difficult at times.”

The internal dynamic involves both direct communication between Sánchez and the vice president, as well as the dialogue between Oscar Lopez with Yolanda Díaz’s chief of staff, Josep Vendrell, and that of the Minister of Social Rights and the 2030 Agenda, sandra astete. Once a week, when the Council of Ministers meets, there is also a meeting of all the Directors of Communication of the Ministries. In these gears, in addition to the “necessary contacts for specific issues” the coordination of the Executive is subject.

The stage of Redondo and Iglesias

Although for the PSOE the operation of the coalition is now better, for United We Can it is simply different, due to the way that Iglesias and Díaz exercise leadership. The former vice president had no management burden in his social vice presidency and that allowed him to be more aware of the political action and communication of the Government. In addition, he was very in tune with Ivan Round. Both Sánchez’s chief of staff and the former Secretary of Communication, Miguel Ángel Oliver, both without a PSOE card, had an easier time approaching Podemos, according to the sources consulted.

Now everything is different because Díaz and his team manage the Ministry of Labor, the one with the greatest powers of the purple formation, and his personality is less prone to anger. And Redondo and Oliver have been replaced by people from the party. According to government sources, this means that “the socialist part go more to their ball“and have an easier time controlling the Government’s communication. It is noted in events such as a lower presence of purple ministers at the press conference of the Council of Ministers or that in the Government’s communications, through the Telegram channel, they are no longer the result of consensus.

The pressure of leaks

In any case, that first stage was anything but idyllic. Leaks constantly hampered government action to the point that the former vice president, Carmen Calvo, made several calls to order in the Commission of Secretaries and Undersecretaries. It was never entirely sure if the origin was Podemos or Iván Redondo himself.

Now this practice has disappeared and the Executive formally controls communication better, although this does not prevent constant friction, with Yolanda Díaz herself, for claiming some of the star decisions of the Executive. The paradigmatic case is labor reform. The forecast is that the differences will increase due to the beginning of the electoral cycle and also because there are very tricky issues such as the tax reform and the increase in the years in the calculation of the retirement age.