“My public and manifest will is that, in this legislature, I am not going to resign myself to the fact that the PSOE and the PP cannot reach major State agreements,” said Pedro Sánchez this Monday night in an interview on Telecinco, before his first meeting in this term with Alberto Núñez Feijóo, which the president wants to hold before the end of the current year.
The PP's misgivings are palpable, and in fact this Monday the date of the meeting could not be closed as they intended in Moncloa. The cabinet of the President of the Government contacted that of the head of the opposition in the afternoon, to offer him three dates to fit the agendas of both and to be able to hold the meeting before the end of the year. Without revealing the specific dates, Moncloa reported that the three proposed dates were “two before Christmas and one before the end of the year.”
In the communication, Sánchez's cabinet reiterated to that of the PP leader its intention to advance possible agreements through a working commission with the PSOE, to achieve three State pacts: the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ ), a new regional financing system, and the reform of article 49 of the Constitution, to eliminate the term disabled, in reference to people with disabilities.
In his pressure strategy on Feijóo, Sánchez first announced his intention to hold an appointment before the end of the year. He then announced his intention to open a “working commission”, between the PSOE and the PP, to address these three State issues. And this Monday night Sánchez even revealed who will make up the socialist delegation at the aforementioned negotiation table with the PP.
They will be, as announced, the vice president of the Government María Jesús Montero, as vice general secretary of the PSOE; the Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños; and the socialist spokesperson in Congress, Patxi López.
Although the PP claimed that “it prefers to agree on what and why, before the when,” Sánchez was determined to sit down with Feijóo before the end of the year.
“We need these agreements, and I do not consider it lost that in this legislature the two major political parties will reach agreements,” the head of the Executive insisted.
The president warned that “we have four years ahead” of the legislature, and the PP cannot remain “in a perpetual and permanent tantrum” all that time. “We have to open spaces for agreement and understanding between the two main political formations in the country,” he demanded. And, in any case, he was open to Feijóo introducing other negotiating points on the agenda of the meeting, if he considers it so.
