In the last five years, politics in Spain has undergone severe changes and continues in a process of evolution that does not know where it is leading. One of these transformations is rupture of the traditional channel of dialogue between the two main parties, PP and PSOE. A situation that is beginning to take root and that will not resolve the meeting that Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Pedro Sánchez will hold in Congress this Wednesday.
The third meeting between the two will not improve the animosity already professed (both have a very low opinion of the other) nor will it redirect their relationship. Despite its institutional nature, it occurs after the King has commissioned the investiture of the popular candidate, it is the most atypical and unsuccessful of all. Nobody expects anything from that interview, nor is it expected that issues unrelated to the formation of the Government will be addressed. It is celebrated, according to both parties, as proof of “democratic normalcy” but as soon as it ends -bets are already being crossed on how many brief minutes it will last-, the frame will once again be the abnormality of solitary confinement.
It is not serious, as some sectors do, to demand that the PP and PSOE come to an agreement when, after an election, one urges the votes of the other, and the defenders of this understanding agree with a certain government. In order to reach that point of political maturity, it is essential that the two formations that have alternated power in Spain maintain a sincere and constant dialogue.
There was hardly any during the entire period of Pablo Casado at the head of the PP, although some agreements were reached, and it has practically disappeared in the Feijóo period. Pedro Sánchez has not been a president who favors his direct rivals. He neither gives them space nor information. He already had a bad relationship with Casado and this has been repeated with the Galician leader. But the acting president always insists that during these years he has never been able to rely on the PP: neither in the pandemic nor after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the economic consequences it generated.
While waiting for there to be a government in Spain or for the elections to be repeated, the dialogue between PSOE and PP continues to be one of the pending issues, despite the fact that, with the arrival of Feijóo at the top of the PP, it seemed that it could be resolved. It was a mirage. With Sánchez in the presidency and the popular leader at the head of the opposition, there have been two meetings. From the first, at the beginning of April 2022, much was expected and it came to nothing. Exchange of papers and offers of State pacts that did not prosper. A first negotiation to renew the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) that was unsuccessful due to lack of confidence and because the Andalusian elections were crossed.
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The second occurred almost out of obligation. The resignation of Carlos Lesmes to the presidency of the Supreme Court and the CGPJ in October forced them to a new appointment. Sánchez summoned Feijóo to Moncloa. And, miraculously, they agreed to get serious about updating this body. And they did. His negotiators -Félix Bolaños and Esteban González Pons- reached an agreement in a few weeks but the popular leader, in the midst of much judicial and media pressure, broke it with the argument that he could not sign it because the Government was going to reduce the crime of sedition (removed it). A similar fright had been carried out before by Casado himself.
From that moment on, and given the perspective of regional, municipal and general elections on the horizon, the decline in the relationship has been total. The PP complains, and rightly so, that Moncloa does not inform them of anything and that there is not even communication on strategic issues such as foreign policy. None of this will improve with this Wednesday’s meeting. And worst of all, in the short term, there is no prospect of a fix.