"Everything reeks of an investiture", they admit in high authorities of Moncloa, taking a deep breath, after the precipitation of "unequivocal signals" registered in the last few days - since the recognition of the amnesty by the leader of the PSOE before the committee federal until the meeting of Santos Cerdán, number three of the Socialists, with former president Carles Puigdemont in Brussels – which point to an imminent re-election of Pedro Sánchez as president of the Spanish Government.
Although always with the caution that such complex negotiations require on multiple sides - as they are well aware that any false step or misinterpreted gesture can make the agreement more expensive and difficult - in Moncloa and the PSOE leadership agree that "everything is on track". And they are already revealing their intention to face Sánchez's investiture debate, if nothing goes wrong, "next week". At full speed
"We are going to the first vote, by an absolute majority", they assure the top of the PSOE. They are convinced that the plenum of the investiture debate in the Congress of Deputies will be resolved in just two sessions, without having to wait 48 hours for a second vote in which only a simple majority would be necessary for the PSOE leader to obtain re-election .
The president of the Lower House, Francina Armengol, is already examining the calendar for next week to set the date of the plenary session, according to the candidate for the investiture.
Parliamentary sources point out that Armengol wants to wait for Felipe VI to return from his next trip to Denmark - on November 7 and 8 - so that he can immediately go to the Zarzuela Palace to inform him of the result of the investiture debate as soon as possible climax In this way, November 8 and 9, Wednesday and Thursday of next week, or already November 9 and 10, Thursday and Friday, are being considered as possible dates for the plenary session of Congress. Sánchez plans to attend on November 11, Saturday, the closing of the congress of the European Socialist Party (PES), which will take place in Malaga.
But before the investiture plenum is held, the PSOE wants "a joint law proposal" signed by all the parliamentary groups of the foreseeable Sánchez Yes bloc to be registered in Congress, with the terms of the amnesty for to the defendants of the independence process. The initiative, therefore, would be explicitly endorsed by the 178 deputies who include the socialist group, Sumar, ERC, Junts, EH Bildu, the PNB and the BNG. This absolute majority would guarantee the approval of the law in the Congress of Deputies, after having supported the re-election of Sánchez as president.
The next relevant date on the calendar, for now, is this Friday, November 3, when Armengol will convene the Congress Bureau, and subsequently the board of spokespersons. If the proposed amnesty law had already been registered, the Bureau could qualify it. And if the date of the investiture debate was already agreed on Friday, Armengol could announce it on the same day. We just have to wait for all the pieces of the puzzle of Sánchez's investiture to fit together, while the details of all the open negotiations are completed.
The meeting of the secretary of organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, with Puigdemont, on Monday in Brussels, brings the agreement with Junts closer, which is the hardest bone to crack for the socialists in these complex negotiations.
The appointment lasted an hour and during the meeting, according to socialist sources, it was not only the investiture of Sánchez that was discussed, but – “above all”, they emphasize – also the legislature. "Everything is going well", they celebrate. The leader of the PSOE wants to guarantee stability in the new legislature, if he succeeds in re-election as president, an objective for which it will be essential to be able to have, to begin with, some new general State budgets for the coming year .
In Moncloa and the leadership of the PSOE, the fact that the meeting between Puigdemont and Cerdán took place under the significant image of one of the referendum ballot boxes on October 1, 2017 was irrelevant. The two parties "agreed" the scenography of the meeting, as pointed out by the socialists, and also that the image of the ballot box of the pro-independence consultation was hardly visible in the photos and videos that the PSOE and Junts distributed after the meeting took place. In any case, the socialists say, Cerdán prioritized the value of the "reunion" defended by Sánchez to face his investiture.
