At the beginning of the year, the mood in the PSOE and in Moncloa resembled euphoria. Four months later, it looks like heartbreak. In political terms, the euphoria and anguish come from an exercise that anyone would do: put on the table a calendar and the laws and plans that must be approved, and then measure the chances that they will actually be approved within the desired deadlines. In January, socialist officials got a tremendously positive calculation despite the tensions, which there were, since the decree on labor reform had just come out of the Council of Ministers. At the end of March, the calculation is not at all clear.
The labor reform was validated in Congress in that way, thanks to the error of a PP deputy named Alberto Casero. Overcome the scare, PSOE, United We Can and the parliamentary allies conspired to work on future laws with more harmony, seeking consensus and stability. The idea, discussed by leaders of the parties concerned, from the PSOE to the ERC, was to promote the gag lawdiscuss what was necessary about housing law and avoid loud discrepancies in standards such as the audiovisual or the yes is yes. All this has blown up.
When 2022 began, the expected political cycle was based in overcoming the pandemic and in economic stimulus, as a result of the injection of European funds. April has not started and the political cycle is now based on overcoming a war at the gates of the EU, with all that this implies and the Government knows: rising prices, distribution problems, growing social unrest, political instability . These days, without going any further, the round of meetings with the groups in search of an agreement on the matter will end. There is no room for consensus, really.
The Congress of Deputies will experience a week of high tension. The feeling has become frequent this legislature because two years ago the coronavirus caused deaths. It was logical to think that these levels of anxiety would hardly be repeated, and yet they are being repeated. The opposition is witnessing a perfect political storm because four fronts threaten to wear down the government in a way that has never happened before, not even during the pandemic. All, except the new scenario in Morocco after the change in the position on the Sahara, derive from the war in Ukraine. They are the following:
War in Ukraine (I): social unrest
This Tuesday the plenary session of Congress will begin with two debates to determine whether two legislative proposals, one from the PP and the other from the PSOE, are taken into consideration. The first has to do with paternity leave and motherhood in single-parent families; the second, about the prison officers. Despite the fact that they are very specific and sectoral issues, no one in Congress doubts that the interventions will address the current situation.
The right-wing opposition, PP, Vox and Cs, plans to do it and the left-wing opposition, from ERC to Más País, even United We Can, plans to do it. The “purple” group is already stirring social networks.
The first point of friction will be the rise in prices, both for fuel and for the shopping basket. In the street, this weekend, there have been massive protests. In many sectors, especially the primary one (agriculture, fishing and livestock) anger predominates.
The First Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, will be this Wednesday, once again, the one who raises more questions from the opposition, including that of who has become one of her parliamentary nemesis, the Vox spokesman, Ivan Espinosa de los Monteros. He will try to get the planned measures to stop the increase in inequality among Spaniards.
The purpose of the deputy of the formation of Santiago Abascal, one of the most active parties this past weekend in the concentrations called, points to social unrest that is expanding while the Government looks for a way to stop, first, and then reverse, the cause: the rise in prices.
Capitalizing on growing anger in Congress will be a challenge for PP and Vox, the second and third groups in the Chamber. For this reason, before Espinosa, the PP coordinator and spokesperson in Congress, Cuca Gamarra, will ask Pedro Sánchez: “Do you think that your lack of measures is generating confidence in the Spanish?”
As soon as it’s over, the president will have a duel with Gabriel Rufian that is not glimpsed of white glove. The ERC leader is going to ask you to clarify who will pay the effects of the war from Ukraine. The political and ideological debate is guaranteed.
Ukrainian War (III): prices
Some interventions and initiatives will delve into the consequences and others into the causes. They will all be oriented to the same thing: to criticize the decisions and the “non-decisions” of the Government once the war has broken out.
The spokesman for Cs, Edmundo Bal, will demand that Calviño list the measures aimed at “alleviating the runaway rise in prices.” The leader of Más País, Íñigo Errejón, who will face Sánchez face to face on Wednesday, will focus his speech on the electricity bill, or as he himself calls it, “the electrical scam”.
The protests and political attacks will come from the left flank and from the right. Albert Botran, from the CUP, and Guillermo Mariscal, from the PP, will address the energy crisis with the third vice president, Theresa Rivera.
The debates on the cost of energy will be the leitmotif of the week. This Tuesday, the plenary session will debate a Vox non-law proposal – a set of political requests without legislative scope – on “the reversal of energy poverty” and the GNP will raise a motion addressed to the Minister of Agriculture, louis planes, to know what policies the Government has deployed and will deploy in order to put an end to the escalation of prices.
War in Ukraine (III): the affected sectors
Last week ended the focus on the supply chain. An association of autonomous carriers called strikes and hindered the work of salaried workers in the sector, which the supermarkets suffered. Products were scarce. The Government mobilized the national police to prevent the pickets and restore normalcy as much as possible.
The weekend, meanwhile, put the focus on the primary sector. On Sunday, “the field” concentrated in Madrid to ask for measures against the rise in fuel and raw materials.
The opposition will echo all of this, PP and Vox specifically, then both will fight a particular battle to extract maximum political profit from the situation. The popular ones will ask Luis Planas what he has in mind to “guarantee the supply of basic food to the Spaniards”, while the minister Raquel Sánchez will be asked to specify the guarantees of “passenger and merchandise transport in the face of fuel prices”. Vox and PP, in addition, will raise two face-to-face debates (interpellations) with both ministers.
And the fourth front: the turn over the Sahara
As if there were few fronts that lie in wait for the Government as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, last Friday, late in the afternoon, with the people savoring the weekend, Moncloa announced its support for the Morocco’s plan on Occidental Sahara. An autonomist plan that curtails the aspirations of the Saharawi people for the call for a self-determination referendum. Was a drastic turn in foreign policysince until now Spain had advocated a position of neutrality promoting a solution within the framework of the United Nations.
The political response has been thunderous. Right and left have criticized the decision and ask Sánchez to explain. United We Can is visibly uncomfortable. This Monday, Más País, Compromís, Nueva Canarias, Canarian Coalition, JxCat, PDeCAT, CUP, EH-Bildu, BNG, ERC and PNV have registered Sánchez’s request to appear before the plenary session.
On paper, there is no Sahara, however. In other words, there are no specific questions to the Government about it. The reason lies in the terms in which it works the congressional record. The presentation of the questions of the opposition must be made on Thursdays prior to the week of plenary session, before 6:00 p.m. The government announcement was on Friday.
However, the groups can change them for current events on Mondays before 12:00. The PP has chosen not to change them, but this does not mean that they do not deal with the open political conflict. They will do it in all the interventions they have. Same as Vox and Cs. And the same as all leftist parties. The clamp is evident and Sánchez seems isolated.