Pedro Sánchez will not go to the European Parliament in September to present the Spanish presidency of the European Union (EU), which he took office on July 1 and ends on December 31.
As La Vanguardia has learned, the acting President of the Government has decided to park the presentation of the priorities of the Spanish mandate out of "respect" for the investiture process initiated by the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, after receiving the order last week of King Felipe VI.
In addition to upsetting Moncloa's plans for the rotating presidency, this postponement will have another consequence. Junts and particularly those around Carles Puigdemont hoped that the visit of the acting Prime Minister to the European Parliament would lead to a gesture of rapprochement by Sánchez. Now this situation will no longer be possible.
This is the second alteration of the external calendar of the Executive after the resignation of the socialist leader to intervene on the originally scheduled date –on July 13– so as not to coincide with the final stretch of the electoral campaign of the general elections held on July 23- J.
The petition was approved by both the PSOE and the PP. The popular, in fact, created a working group with former ministers and foreign policy experts, evidencing the optimism declared in Genoa after the numerous polls that gave Feijóo a large majority capable of ousting Sánchez de la Moncloa.
The popular set the signing of a European migration pact as some of the guidelines of the hypothetical interim presidency of the EU of Feijóo. And they even accepted the week of September 14 to accommodate the presentation of their project, understanding that the "blue tsunami" that the leaders of Genoa predicted at the polls would allow an express investiture of their national leader.
But the truth is that the PP is still far from having the necessary support for Feijóo to be sworn in as president of the government and, out of "respect" for that process, it has been Sánchez himself who has decided to once again renounce speaking before the European Parliament. .
If we add to this the refusal shown by the PNV, ERC and Junts to support the PP, everything indicates that the election of the next president of the government will be delayed beyond October 5, when the summit is scheduled to be held in Granada informal meeting of leaders of the European Union in which not only the Twenty-seven member states of the European Union will participate, but also other countries such as Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, candidates to join the community alliance.
Although there are precedents for holding national elections coinciding with the rotating presidency of the Council, none of the recent documented cases occurred just three weeks after the EU took over, as was the case in Spain with the July 23 elections.
While the only precedent of a change of head of government via elections in the middle of the semester of the European presidency dates back to Italy in 1996.
