King Felipe VI will hold the traditional round of consultations with the political leaders between next Monday, August 21, starting at 10:30 in the morning, and Tuesday the 22nd. The last to go to La Zarzuela will be the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, at 4:00 p.m., as it was the winning party in the elections. Before it will be the turn of Pedro Sánchez, acting president of the Government.
Article 99 of the Constitution establishes that "after each renewal of the Congress of Deputies, and in the other constitutional cases in which it proceeds, the King, after consulting with the representatives designated by the political groups with parliamentary representation, and through the President of Congress, will propose a candidate for the Presidency of the Government”.
Political representatives will attend La Zarzuela following the traditional order: from the lowest to the highest number of seats. The round will be opened by Javier Esparza, president of the Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN), followed by Cristina Valido, the deputy of the Canary Islands Coalition who yesterday spoke in favor of Cuca Gamarra as president of Congress. Next it will be the turn of the PNV and its parliamentary spokesman, Aitor Esteban. The last to meet with the King on Monday will be Yolanda Díaz, from Sumar.
On Tuesday morning it will be the turn of Santiago Abascal, president of Vox; followed by Pedro Sánchez, at 12:00. The acting government plans to hold the first Council of Ministers of the political course on Tuesday. After meeting with Feijóo, the King will decide if he designates a candidate for the Presidency of the Government.
ERC, Junts, EH Bildu and the BNG have declined to participate in the round of consultations with the King. The head of state will have to decide which candidate he proposes without having met with the decisive political parties in the vote of the Congress Table, also transcendental formations in a possible investiture of Pedro Sánchez, who yesterday managed to gather 178 supports.
The specification of the dates of the round of consultations by the Casa del Rey comes after a meeting between Felipe VI and the new president of Congress, Francina Armengol, who traveled to La Zarzuela this Friday. The reason for this first meeting was entirely formal.
The monarch has received Armengol "to communicate to Don Felipe the constitution of the Congress of Deputies of the XV legislature", reports the Casa del Rey. The meeting took place at 10:30 in the morning and then it was the turn of Pedro Rollán, the new president of the Senate, who informed the Head of State of the constitution of the Upper House.
In addition to the meeting in La Zarzuela, Armengol has convened for this Friday the first meeting of the new Congress Table, a government body that will be controlled by the progressive block of PSOE and Sumar by a majority of five representatives compared to four from the PP.
Armengol already proclaimed yesterday after being named president of Congress, and during her first speech of political content, that during her term she would promote the agreements and this morning, in her first interview, on TVE, she added that she will prioritize "dialogue and" consensus ”. In her opinion, the hemicycle resembles the “real Spain”.
After proclaiming that Catalan, Basque and Galician may be used in the new Congress, Armengol added today that "one of the great strengths" of Spain is its "linguistic wealth". The president of the Congress has specified, in Cadena Ser, that her commitment is to implement the use of the co-official languages in the chamber as quickly as possible. She will establish contact with the parliamentary groups to do so with "consensus" and after addressing the necessary technical issues.
"We have to be able to listen to each other, answer each other and understand each other," he defended. "There are ideologically antagonistic positions, but there must be State agreements," Armengol stated, citing the fight against gender violence as one of the issues on which there must be "consensus."
The next step in Congress is the formation of parliamentary groups and in this regard the PSOE already took it for granted that ERC and Junts would have their own. The regulation determines that parties with more than 15 seats or those that, with a minimum of 5, exceed 5% of the votes in all of Spain or 15% in the constituencies in which they have concurred, may be constituted as a group. With the help of the Socialists, each of the two Catalan nationalist parties would have their own parliamentary group, along with those of the PP, PSOE, Vox, Sumar, EH Bildu and PNV. BNG, CC and UPN would remain in the Mixed.
