“There is a lot of fabric to cut & rdquor ;. The phrase is from the deputy of EH Bildu Oskar Matute, called to be one of the key figures in the negotiation of the State’s general budgets Next year. In an interview on Radio Euskadi, last Sunday, he anticipated what the representatives of the Government, the PSOE, United We Can and all the parties with something to say about public accounts take for granted. That suspense will last until the last minute. Knowing how to negotiate is knowing how to pressure, and when agreements are not expected to be easy, you have to know how to negotiate very well and know how to pressure very well.
Using the tenses is essential. Next decisive deadline: Friday, October 21 at 2:00 p.m.. Then the period for the registration of amendments to the entire, or what is the same, requests to return the budget project to the Government, since it would contain numerous gaps and deficiencies. Matute said about it last Sunday: “We will see if we present an amendment to the whole or not; that stage will be open until the last minute & rdquor ;.
In the same walk ERC, PNV and PDeCAT, and here is the source of the tension. These three groups, plus EH Bildu, have the key to Congress so that the budgets continue on their way and go to the Senate. They are two nationalist formations and two other independentists. Two Catalan formations and another two Basque.
The four have begun to negotiate with the Ministry of Finance and with the PSOE to, at least, not file individual requests for the return of the accounts. The socialists must be careful because if one of them, or several, opts for the rejection of the project, the risk that the plenary session of Congress knocks it down will increase a lot. It is true that after those amendments, until the debate and the vote, can be withdrawnbut the fear in the body (of the members of the Government) is not removed by anyone.
The instruments of the Executive to get away with it they are numerous, and it is more than likely that this is what will happen, but a parliamentary source already fully involved in the negotiations with the PSOE tells El Periódico de España that the budget scenario, as of Tuesday, October 18, 2022, is “very uncertain”.
Outstretched hand, not all the time
The PNV was critical of the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, last Thursday, in the debate on new energy measures. The spokesman, Aitor Esteban, asked the president for more prudence, not so many discussions and confrontations. The Basque deputy is concerned that this landscape of constant PSOE-PP mourning will cloud what in his opinion should be a calm and extremely discreet negotiation. The Basque nationalists do not let go of pledges, they do not give clues. Of course they have been talking to the government, for days as well, and of course they have raised compensation to prevent it from registering the amendment in its entirety. What they claim is what does not transcend. Can they request the return of the project? In the PNV they do not rule it out; They don’t take it for sure either.
To tell the truth, that is what the other three key groups are saying. The lack of definition is essential. Do not reveal anything in public, nor in private. The president of the PNV, Andoni Ortúzar, said last Friday in Rome that of course he has “outstretched hand” to the Government to negotiate, but immediately afterwards he warned: “We need the other side to have the political will to collaborate and not to confront.”
The main opponent in Euskadi of Ortúzar’s party is EH Bildu. Matute, on Sunday, avoided any praise for the budget project. He did not evade, at all, the demands of his acronym: “that power be in the hands of the citizens and not in those of the electricity oligopoly, the CEOE or the large food supply chains & rdquor ;. In his opinion, the accounts they must contribute to closing “the inequality gap & rdquor;.
“We propose very clear measures, which are those of Euskal Herria. For example, the claims of pensioners, specifically widows & rdquor ;, added Oskar Matute before stressing that they have not received from the Government, for the moment, “an answer on the accepted elements and the elements that must be negotiated & rdquor ;.
In case it is not clear that EH Bildu will rush the times to the end, this statement: “I don’t know what EH Bildu is going to do, but he does want to negotiate and is willing, so we will see depending on the answer they give us, what are we going to do & rdquor ;.
ERC, an expert in extreme negotiations and in pressing until the end, is going to sell its support very dearly. The deputy general secretary and spokesperson for the ERC, Marta Vilalta, warned this Monday that her training is “very far” with the “ok” to budgets. For the independentistas, the negotiation does not have to turn only on the accounts and the forecasts. Also on other matters. Last year, Esquerra opted to unclog the shielding of Catalan on the platforms, for which reason the audiovisual law infiltrated the budget framework. It was a very complex process.
This year, ERC has recognized that it wants progress in the reform of the crime of sedition. Asked by the PSOE about the issue, this Tuesday, the number two of the parliamentary group, Isaura Leal, limited herself to praising the negotiating skills of the Government. Vilalta, 24 hours earlier, did not hesitate to be blunt: “There are many pending duties, by the Government of the Spanish State, both in the most global issue for the democratic resolution of the conflict and the anti-repressive agenda to work, and in the project itself of Budgets”.
Generate doubts
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The fourth custodian party of that key that gives free rein to the budgets is the PDeCAT, four deputies. His spokesman, Ferrán Bel, has criticized this Tuesday an apparent contradiction of the Government on the accounts. He has done so after listening to the president of the AiReF in Congress, who has not concealed her doubts about the viability of the project. For the Catalan deputy, it is reprehensible that the Executive deploys the accounts on a scenario of less income and expenses despite the fact that it is more likely that there will be much more income (European funds) and more expenses.
So the PDeCAT is going to deliberate this week, until Friday at 2:00 p.m., whether to present an amendment to the entirety or not. This Monday, in the words of Bel, the Executive of his party ruled him out. But the decision is not final. On Thursday they will revisit the dilemma. The deputy admitted that he prefers not to abort the budget process now. Now then, he immediately stressed that if the PDeCAT does not present an amendment to the totality in the end and with its vote helps to reject those that stand in the way, much less will it give a vote in favor or an abstention. No. The Catalans will negotiate hard, very hard. So Budgets now enter an uncertain zone.