With budgets that would guarantee the course of the legislature, a fiscal policy with broad social support in the face of the energy and inflationary crisis and a penal reform that tries to dismantle the political conflict and recover coexistence in Catalonia, Pedro Sánchez will try to rebuild the lost course this week in the previous And speed up again.
Last week was fateful for the Government and the PSOE. While Sánchez reinforced his international profile and the projection of Spain at the G-20 meeting in Bali and on his subsequent trip to Seoul, the coalition Executive and his own party threatened to enter into an accelerated combustion.
The alarms began to howl in the face of the intense internal controversies unleashed by the unwanted effects of the judicial application of the new Law on Sexual Freedom –with a wave of reductions in sentences for the aggressors– and by fears of the consequences that a similar law could generate. reform of the crime of embezzlement to benefit those accused of the independence process in Catalonia.
Two of the main flags and hallmarks brandished by Sánchez and the PSOE as a whole – the fights against sexist violence and against political corruption – were thus tarnished. And during the entire week of his Asian tour, the President of the Government only spoke publicly about it to try to buy time. Given the reductions in sentences for sexual offenders, he claimed to wait for the Supreme Court to unify doctrine. And regarding a possible review of the embezzlement, he avoided advancing a position until the parliamentary process of the reform of the Penal Code is substantiated.
The fire continued to spread like this without any firewall, with the government besieged and on the defensive, while in the PSOE the refusal to touch embezzlement soared and the voices urging to correct the law of only yes is yes increased to avoid its perverse effects. At the same time, the civil war between Podemos and Vice President Yolanda Díaz intensified in the face of this legal controversy. All this, moreover, at the gates of the new electoral cycle. And in the PSOE they warned that these controversies can bring serious punishment at the polls if they are not stopped immediately.
In Moncloa they rushed to try to lower the pitch of the controversies, reduce the noise within the coalition Executive and "temper", as they warned, the agitations in the PSOE. For this, they tried to redirect the shot against the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, as the best cohesive element, due to his position before the Law of Sexual Freedom and the offensive deployed against the ministers of Equality, Irene Montero, and Justice, Pilar Llop, and the siege against the head of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, due to the tragedy at the Melilla fence.
The Socialists already took advantage of the CIS survey last Friday – which increased their electoral advantage over the PP – to try to regain their pulse. The survey, according to the minister María Jesús Montero, in her role as deputy secretary general of the PSOE, reflects the "overwhelming support" from society for the government's management and policies. And she consolidates the image of Feijóo, as she assured her, as "a failed leader."
Already with Sánchez at the foot of the canyon, Moncloa wants to recover the initiative this week, to try to overcome the controversies of the past. The president will speak today at the NATO parliamentary assembly that is being held in Madrid. At the same time, the plenary session of Congress will begin the debates and voting on the chapters and amendments of the 2023 State budget project.
Thursday will be the big day. If nothing goes wrong, Congress is expected to approve the budgets for submission to the Senate, the new taxes on banks, energy companies and large fortunes, and the consideration of the reform of the crime of sedition for that of aggravated public disorder. Budgets, fair taxation and coexistence in Catalonia, thus, to resume the route of Sánchez.
