Nobody gives away pesetas. Every year, and there are three, the Government of Pedro Sánchez is dragged by its parliamentary allies into a tough negotiation against the clock, and until the last second, in order to save the State budget.
In Moncloa, however, they claim to be convinced that the budget project for 2023 will overcome next week the first major obstacle for its processing in the Cortes: the vote in Congress, this October 27, of the amendments of totality .
But this same Friday, at 2:00 p.m., the deadline expires for the parliamentary groups that so decide to register their budget return amendments. In the Executive, they take it for granted that the Popular Party, Vox and Ciudadanos will try to knock down the accounts again in this first process. And they are striving to seal last-minute agreements so that the ERC and the PNV, along with the rest of the groups that make up the majority of the investiture, do not register amendments to the entirety. And allow a processing of the budgets in the Cortes –associated with new pacts and transfers to the groups– that makes the most important bill of the year become a reality, “in due time and form”, on January 1 .
"The negotiations are going well," acknowledged yesterday the Minister of Finance and Deputy Secretary General of the PSOE, María Jesús Montero. "I would like the negotiations to be short, but I hope that everyone understands that these public accounts are necessary," she demanded in an interview on TVE. “In a scenario as polyhedral as that of Congress, many times the negotiations are prolonged beyond what we would all like, but I hope that everyone understands that it is necessary for our country and our citizens that we have new public accounts that they promote well-being, protect us against the consequences of war and, above all, allow everyone to face this coming year in better conditions”, argued Montero.
Meanwhile, the Minister of the Presidency and Relations with Parliament, Félix Bolaños, continues his negotiating round. Yesterday he met with the two deputies of the Canarian Coalition, Ana Oramas and María Fernández, who confirmed that they will not register a complete amendment to the accounts. In recent days, the meetings between the Government and the ERC have intensified, according to La Vanguardia, and despite the fact that both parties made progress in the negotiation, from the Republican side they denounce the "immobility" of the socialist party when it comes to attending their legal and social claims. Looking askance at the municipal elections in May, where the ERC is at stake in Catalonia, the executive is debating whether to present an amendment to the entirety as it did in 2019, thus causing the early call for general elections.
The demands of the republicans to the Government are, essentially, two. These are extrabudgetary issues, as happened last year with the Audiovisual Law, which ended up conditioning the agreement. Specifically, ERC demands concrete progress from the PSOE in the reform of the Penal Code, an initiative frozen by Moncloa and which constitutes a risk for the PSOE in a pre-election moment in the face of its expectations in territories such as Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha or Aragón.
The Housing Law is the other requirement of ERC to the Government. Here United We Can support those of Junqueras. The Catalan group is looking for an agreement that serves to protect the Catalan norm, currently appealed before the Constitutional Court. There are two especially controversial points: the limitation of all rents and the prohibition of any type of eviction without a housing alternative. For Esquerra, this law would be a social advance that he could defend before his bases.
The ERC spokesman in Congress and member of the party's executive, Gabriel Rufián, assured yesterday in a message on social networks that "the PSOE to this day continues not to fulfill its own commitments."
The Government wants ERC in the budgets, but it does not need its 13 votes in a mandatory way to approve the budgets. The numbers would come out, although they would be much more rushed. PSOE, United We Can, PNV, EH Bildu, PDeCAT, Más País, Compromís, Teruel Exists, PRC, Canarian Coalition and the deputy attached to the mixed group, María Pita, would add 176 votes.
