Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez modulated their strategies yesterday in the new clash they waged in the Senate. The President of the Government did not try to overwhelm and knock out the contender for the title, but to beat him on points, while the leader of the Popular Party jumped into the ring with more claw and more desire to fight. This time, unlike in the previous round on September 6, it was Feijóo who denounced Sánchez's "insolvency or bad faith".
The parliamentary debate confronted the ideological, political, economic and fiscal postulates of the contenders, but with more white glove than acrimony. Not in vain, Sánchez and Feijóo waged their dialectical struggle while, under the radar, Félix Bolaños and Esteban González Pons speed up the negotiation of the judicial pact between the Government and the PP, which was preserved yesterday and is presumed imminent. Sánchez himself warned: “It seems that we can reach an agreement to renew the General Council of the Judiciary and the Constitutional Court. And, in the interest of preserving that long-awaited deal, it's important that we set it aside." So it was.
Once the perimeter of the clash was established, the President of the Government did repeat the formula of his previous face-to-face with Feijóo in the Senate, and in this new appearance he reserved his first intervention to convey a message of calm to the public in the face of social alarm over the energy and inflationary crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine, and left for the reply his particular struggle with Feijóo. In his duel with the leader of the PP, Sánchez confronted Feijóo: "He uses this damn war to try to bring down the Government." Exactly the same, he warned, that his predecessor, Pablo Casado, tried to topple the Executive in the heat of the pandemic crisis. Sánchez denounced the "lack of definition and calculated ambiguity" of the head of the main opposition party. “You do not define yourself. That is his opposition strategy, he uses hoaxes, like Casado in the past, and he lacks proposals, ”he criticized. “Step on some glass, man! Tell the elite who support you that they have to pay taxes”, he demanded.
The head of the Executive repeatedly ironized about the management experience that Feijóo wields after revalidating four absolute majorities at the head of the Xunta de Galicia. "You who have so much experience as president," Sánchez repeated over and over again. Thus he wanted, precisely, to once again highlight the insolvency that he attributes to him to try to reach Moncloa, only driven by the polls and without wanting to step on any puddle. "It doesn't strain, we already know each other," Sánchez warned him. And he accused Feijóo of "using the same arguments" as his predecessors, by attributing to a socialist president who sells out to the independentists or wants to break up Spain. “Do you prefer the Spain and Catalonia of 2017 or that of 2022?”, He summoned him to respond, after the gasoline that Mariano Rajoy's management of the Catalan political conflict meant for the independence process, according to Sánchez. “Do not use hoaxes, renew your argument. Don't give us lessons in patriotism," he demanded of Feijóo. "He has no answer, no alternative, except disqualification," he settled.
The leader of the PP, for his part, wanted to continue paying his roadmap to Moncloa. "The best decision is to change the Government," he warned about an Executive, in his opinion, "divided and weakened." And he urged Sánchez to withdraw his new budget project for 2023, so as not to further indebt the future of the Spanish, his children and his grandchildren. "The general mortgages of the State", he called the accounts, in his opinion based on false economic forecasts. "I think this is going to be his last budget as Prime Minister, I say it from the heart," he predicted.
Feijóo once again denounced the bad companies that he attributes to Sánchez, in the Government and in Parliament. "I will not agree with the independence movement so that Spanish children cannot learn Spanish in Spain," he warned about linguistic immersion in Catalonia.
In his message addressed to the public, Sánchez did not want to "sweeten the situation", but neither did he "fall into defeatism". “We are going to get through this crisis,” he promised. "The next few months are not going to be easy, the immediate future is still full of uncertainties," he admitted. But we are preparing for all eventualities.” And he stressed: “Drastic measures are not going to be adopted, there are not going to be blackouts, or rationing, or any of those apocalyptic scenes that the creators of hoaxes predict. No Spanish home is going to lack the energy to light up, heat up and cook this winter”.
The president demanded fiscal co-responsibility from the autonomous communities and rejected "a downward fiscal dispute that will weaken our welfare state." And he highlighted “hopeful aspects”, despite the uncertainties of the crisis. Thus, he affirmed that Spain is the EU country where inflation fell the most in the last month, that economic growth and job creation are maintained. “We are going in the right direction. I know there are going to be potholes along the way, but our course is the right one,” Sánchez concluded.
