After meeting with the spokespersons of all the parliamentary groups, except for the far-right Vox, Pedro Sánchez met yesterday with the PSOE negotiating commission for the investiture and this Wednesday he held various meetings with representatives of the science sector, the educational community and the ecological and environmental organizations. The key conversations to unblock a re-election of the PSOE leader as President of the Government, especially with Junts per Catalunya, however remain under the radar. In the Moncloa and in the leadership of the PSOE, without revealing the obstacles that delay an investiture pact, and even a legislature, they try in any case to overcome the difficulties of the negotiations. “Things are moving forward, as planned,” the socialists point out. “We remain confident, as always, that there will be an investiture. “We are not pessimists,” they highlight, to try to clear the dark clouds on the horizon.
“We continue to advance,” stressed this Wednesday the acting Minister of the Presidency, the socialist Félix Bolaños, Pedro Sánchez's right-hand man on whom a good part of the negotiations for the investiture pivot, especially with Junts and Esquerra Republicana.
“We continue working and continue to advance in the conversations, to achieve a stable government that continues with the agenda of social progress, improvements, and equality that we have already carried out in the last five years,” Bolaños highlighted. “We are working hard,” he remarked.
The optimism of the Government contrasts with the pessimism of the ERC Government. The Minister of the Presidency, Laura Vilagrà, warned this Wednesday that “the negotiation is still between green and very green”, so immature that Sánchez can appear, according to the Catalan leader, at an investiture session in the Congress of Deputies. .
Vilagrà and the Minister of Economy, Natàlia Mas, met this morning with CC.OO., UGT, Foment del Treball and Pimec to, in addition to closing ranks that third folder, analyze the economic and social situation in Catalonia and report on the perspectives of a new budget of the Generalitat for 2024. After that meeting, the Minister of the Presidency has admitted that, although the amnesty "is advanced and we take it for granted", the other two folders that make up the negotiation are in a state incipient. One related to self-determination – for which ERC would need the resumption of the dialogue table – and the other represented by the comprehensive transfer of the Rodalies service and the fiscal deficit. "The other two folders still have to be opened" because "all three are important," the councilor claimed.
For his part, Minister Bolaños has not assessed the content and scope of a possible amnesty law for those prosecuted for the process, or the conditions for a self-determination referendum in Catalonia and has limited himself to reiterating that "everything that "We are doing, and everything we will do, will be impeccable from a constitutional point of view." “Impeccable, everything,” he remarked. The socialist leader has refused to go into the details of the conversations, claiming that "when there are agreements, if we achieve them, we will inform with complete transparency of what the agreements are."
Socialist sources insist, in any case, that the pact for the investiture is not running aground, but that it is not advancing as quickly as had been ventured. And they deny concern in this regard, despite assuming the difficulties of the endeavor. They reiterate, in this sense, that the agreement does not depend only on the PSOE, but on all parliamentary groups. It will not be easy nor will it be resolved in a few weeks, as they point out. “There is no rush,” they claim, at least for now.
The calendar, however, is beginning to tighten. After the first vote on the failed investiture of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the deadline runs out on November 27. If a president of the government has not been inaugurated by that time, the repeat elections will take place on January 14 of next year. And in the PSOE everyone continues to cross their fingers.
On the other hand, Félix Bolaños has shown his respect for Pere Aragonès' decision to attend tomorrow the general commission of the autonomous communities in the Senate, to defend the amnesty against the opposition of the autonomous presidents of the Popular Party. An appointment that will not be attended by any of the three regional presidents of the PSOE, nor by the Castilian Emiliano García-Page from La Mancha, nor by the Navarrese María Chivite, nor by the Asturian Adrián Barbón. “It seems more worrying to me that the PP is turning the Senate into a set for its shows, which we all already know, of outrageousness, lies and exaggerations,” Bolaños denounced.
