Pedro Sánchez knows well, from his own experience, that a negotiation with the Popular Party to try to unblock the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary can blow up at any time and due to the most unexpected circumstances. So, after the urgent meeting on Monday between the President of the Government and Alberto Núñez Feijóo, forced by the consummate resignation of Carlos Lesmes as the highest judicial authority in Spain, the Executive is treading carefully so that, this time, it can achieve a consensus with the main opposition party to unblock the governing body of the judges, who has accumulated almost four years with his mandate expired. And, to begin with, the Government avoids expressing any consideration that could collide with the PP and that could be used as an excuse to ruin the ongoing negotiation, the "last chance" that both parties have given themselves.
“Right now, for the sake of the agreement, the important thing is to underline that we are forging it. Therefore, today is not the time to show our differences, which there are, but to see what we agree on, so that as soon as possible we can put an end to what was a democratic anomaly", said the Government spokesperson, the socialist Isabel Rodríguez, this Tuesday at the end of the Council of Ministers, before the modulated demand, expressed today by Feijóo, so that the judges participate or "have more weight" in the election of the judges. "Hopefully we are already at the last moments to speed up that agreement", the spokesperson has confided.
Isabel Rodríguez has chosen to launch, in this way, a positive message that has avoided confrontation with the PP at all times. “We would like to celebrate that after four years of blockade, of a democratic anomaly, we are making progress on an agreement”, she stressed. The minister spokesperson has highlighted that the situation of blockade of the Judiciary “profoundly aggravated” when last Sunday the president of the CGPJ and of the Supreme Court, Carlos Lesmes, announced his resignation. And he stressed that the President of the Government took the initiative and, "immediately", summoned the opposition leader to Moncloa, "to speed up this last opportunity to reach an agreement and return our country to the path of normality institutional".
The minister spokesperson, therefore, did not want to emphasize the Executive's refusal to reform the election system for the members of the CGPJ, as Feijóo claims. Isabel Rodríguez has warned that everyone "is clear about the position of the Government and what the position of the PP is." But she has insisted: “Here what it is about is to solve a democratic anomaly, to comply with the Constitution. We have given ourselves one last chance. The Government is very interested in carrying out this agreement. And when working for the agreement, it is very important not to focus on the difference, ”she has claimed.
Isabel Rodríguez has thus avoided any clash with the PP in this regard, or airing the opposing positions of both parties in the formula for electing the members of the CGPJ, as the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, did the day before. “It is important to forge that agreement and therefore let the teams work to solve this situation and that this much-needed and much-desired unblocking takes place, of course, by the Government, throughout these four years.”
