It couldn't be this time either. And that, as Pedro Sánchez acknowledged, had never been so close to signing the pact for the renewal of the Judiciary.
In fact, when everything was blown up, what was being negotiated was how the agreement was going to be staged and some other minor fringe. But in just 24 hours, what the negotiators – Félix Bolaños for the Government and Esteban González Pons for the PP – had woven with great effort, came to nothing. Gone were 15 days of talks, those that had passed since Sánchez summoned Feijóo in Moncloa on October 11 after the resignation of the president of the General Council of the Judiciary, Carlos Lesmes.
Negotiations from scratch
The negotiators had started from scratch and soon saw that an agreement was possible. Names were not mentioned almost until the end, and the popular ones saw that the Government accepted part of their postulates: no one from politics should go on to occupy a position in the Judicial Power or in the Constitutional Court. Another of the proposals of the PP was that the magistrates of the Supreme Court have at least 25 years of experience administering justice.
Budgets and sedition
Everything was progressing. But the negotiation of the budgets crossed and, in parallel, the demand of the Esquerra Republicana reappeared, shared by a good part of the allies of the investiture, to reform the crime of sedition for which the protagonists of the procés were convicted, and which is pending about the Catalan politicians who fled from Spain.
Gamarra sees no conflict
During the last weekend, the debate on sedition went further. Various media, including La Vanguardia, announced that the Government, although it did not intend to repeal the crime, did intend to reduce the penalties. This newspaper asked in the PP on Monday 24 if the debate on the reform of sedition could condition the renewal of the Council. The answer was explicit: no. The negotiations were separate.
The resounding refusal had its support in the message that Minister Bolaños transmitted to the PP and that, according to popular sources, indicated that the reform of the crime of sedition was not part of the government's plans at that time. On Tuesday, the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, ratified the party's position in the sense that the negotiation was going ahead and that a modification of the Penal Code for the crime of sedition would not call the negotiation into question.
The PP, under a lot of pressure
The pressure unleashed against the PP from other conservative groups, but above all from the closest media outlets, which published information and opinions about "the huge mistake" that Feijóo was going to commit, redoubled. It was a full-fledged campaign. In the PP many leaders began to rethink things. Feijóo spoke with most of the party's barons. Juanma Moreno, from Andalusia, had reached the same conclusion as Díaz Ayuso from Madrid: everyone advised against the agreement under that pressure.
Debate in Congress
And Thursday came. In the budget debate, the Minister of Finance, responding to the ERC spokesperson, spoke of the Government's firm commitment to the reform of the Penal Code. In the PP all the alarms went off. From Genoa a message was sent to Moncloa: if it was not explicitly resigned, the negotiations were at risk. Shortly after, Montero nuanced his announcement. But barely an hour later, Sánchez confirmed in a press conference his intention to change the crime of sedition.
Feijóo, speaking with Sánchez
The PP leader waited to speak on the phone with the president. The conversation, which a few days earlier would have served to agree on the signing, meant the breaking of contacts after Sánchez confirmed what he had already said at the press conference. However, government sources assure that Feijóo did not consider the conversations broken on that call. Of the definitive and total rupture, the Executive had the first news through the press release that, at the end of the day, the PP sent to the media.
