Moncloa and the leadership of the PSOE do not give credit, they would never have imagined it, it had never happened to them. Until now, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, like Pablo Casado before, had been running whenever Pedro Sánchez summoned them. Like Sánchez, when he was head of the opposition, he always went immediately when Mariano Rajoy had summoned him. Bye now.
“It is an unusual and unjustifiable fact that a leader of the opposition does not go running to a meeting called by the President of the Government”, warn Moncloa. But it is so. Sánchez’s proposal to Feijóo to hold a first meeting in this new term – on Monday he offered him up to three possible dates before the end of the year – remains unanswered by the leader of the Popular Party. Almost a week later.
As the proposal of the head of the Spanish Executive to activate a work committee, between the PSOE and the PP, to negotiate and be able to unblock three specific State pacts in this new legislature, also remains unanswered. Sánchez’s offer is to agree on a new regional financing system, since the current one expired nine years ago, a barbarity. Also to agree on the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), also with the mandate already expired more than five years ago. And to finish, agree on a one-time reform of article 49 of the Constitution, to eliminate the diminished term with reference to people with a disability.
“I’m asking Feijóo for more agreements and less insults!”, Sánchez demanded of Feijóo during the intervention that the leader of the PSOE starred in yesterday at the political convention that the Galician socialists celebrated in Santiago de Compostela, to urge the chief of the opposition to accept his invitation to hold this meeting.
“Politics is not to destroy, it is to build. Politics is not a monologue, it is a dialogue. Politics is about agreeing and not permanent rage. That’s why I ask Feijóo and the PP, at the beginning of this legislature, that there be more agreements and less insults”, he asked the head of the opposition. In an indirect rebuke to Feijóo, in addition, Sánchez claimed “useful politics” and his ability to reach agreements with other political families, shortly after arriving from Brussels, where he received praise the day before of the president of the European Council, the Belgian liberal Charles Michel, and of the president of the Commission, the German conservative Ursula von der Leyen, for the successes achieved during this semester of the Spanish presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Sánchez listed the agreements reached, in the previous legislature and in the current one, with the unions and employers, the autonomous communities and the town councils, even with the Catalan pro-independence formations, with reference to an “agenda of reunion for unite our country”, or with European governments to approve the recovery funds. With everyone, as Sánchez wanted to emphasize, except for the main opposition party. “It’s time to work and agree”, Sánchez insisted to the PP, with reference to the three State pacts he wants to negotiate with Feijóo. So far, no success.
“An agreement is made when it is respected”, warned the leader of the PSOE. And he pointed out that against the attacks – even personal – that he receives from the right and the ultra-right, that of respect “is a revolution still pending in our democratic system”. “Respect is fundamental and it starts with respecting the result of the elections”, he emphasized. “And it starts by respecting the legitimacy of a government that has been supported by the representatives of more than 12 million citizens in Congress”, Feijóo insisted on warning.
Sánchez encouraged the PP to also “respect” the Constitution, and territorial and linguistic diversity. He again warned against the “threat of an ultra-right international”, and criticized the PP for its pacts with Vox. “It would be good if the PP, throughout Spain, reviewed its agreements with Vox, and put an end to the coalition governments that are deteriorating and weakening cohesion and coexistence in our country”, he said.
After visiting the facilities of the Navantia shipyard, in Ferrol, Sánchez – with the Vice President of the Spanish Government and Deputy Secretary General of the PSOE, María Jesús Montero – attended the convention of the Galician Socialists in Santiago. At the event he accompanied the candidate of the PSdeG for the presidency of the Xunta, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, who revealed that he had rejected his proposal to appoint him minister to try to end fourteen consecutive years of PP governments in Galicia