King Felipe VI called for next Monday and Tuesday the mandatory round of consultations to be able to propose a candidate for the investiture. After receiving yesterday morning the president of Congress, Francina Armengol, and of the Senate, Pedro Rollá, who informed him of the composition of the new General Courts, the head of state activated the constitutional mechanism set forth in article 99 of the Constitution. "The King, after consultation with the representatives appointed by the political groups with parliamentary representation, and through the president of Congress, will propose a candidate for the Presidency of the Government".
Seven political leaders will go to Zarzuela to meet the Monarch. The round will be opened by Javier Esparza, president of Unió del Poble Navarrès (UPN), convened at 10.30am on Monday. Although he does not have a seat in the Lower House, it is common for him to be the one who goes to the convocation of the head of state. He will be followed by Cristina Valido, the representative of Coalició Canària, who in the vote of the Congress Bureau supported the candidate of the PP, Cuca Gamarra; and Aitor Esteban, parliamentary spokesman of the PNB. The last to meet with the King on Monday will be Yolanda Díaz, from Sumar.
Tuesday morning will be the turn of Santiago Abascal, president of Vox; followed by Pedro Sánchez, at 12:00 on the same day. The current Government plans to hold the first Council of Ministers of the political year on Tuesday itself. Alberto Núñez Feijóo is summoned at 4:00 p.m. and then the King will decide whether to appoint 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 Felipe VI. The head of state will have to decide, therefore, whether to appoint a candidate for the investiture without having personally met with four parties that group together 21 essential seats for Sánchez to gain the confidence of Congress. On Thursday, they supported the progressive bloc for Armengol to win the vote for the Presidency of the Lower House, with 178 deputies, but they already warned that this decision was independent of the investiture negotiations.
The PP insisted yesterday that Feijóo would attempt an investiture, if the King orders him to do so. The first vice-president of the Senate Bureau, Javier Maroto, explained that the winner of the elections has the "obligation to appear at the investiture and make every effort to avoid a Sánchez Government and a repeat election". Despite the fact that on Thursday the PP collected 139 votes and was not able to reach an agreement with Vox, Maroto added that "we do not foresee the option of losing". He insisted that "there is an obligation of the winner to fulfill the commitment of the voters".
The confirmation of the dates of the round of consultations by the House of the King came after a first meeting of Felipe VI with the new president of the Congress, Francina Armengol, who traveled to the Zarzuela on Friday. The Head of State, according to sources familiar with the meeting, was interested in the political situation and also in the commitment of the third authority of the State to promote the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the hemicycle during the legislature that began on Thursday.
Armengol plans to seek "consensus" with the political groups in the coming days to speed up the use of co-official languages in the Lower Chamber, in addition to exploring the most effective technical formula and regulatory fit. "It is a priority issue", he said.
The next step in Congress is the formation of parliamentary groups and in this aspect the PSOE has already assumed that ERC and Junts would have their own. With the help of the Socialists, each of the two Catalan nationalist parties will have an independent parliamentary group, together with those of PP, PSOE, Vox, Sumar, EH Bildu and PNB. BNG, CC and UPN will be included in the mix.
