176-173. It is not a security key or an encrypted message. They are two sums of two political sectors, that of the groups that can save the labour reform and the one of those who can sink it. That’s how complex the scenario is in Congress.
In 176, an absolute majority, there is a group of deputies that the PSOE wants to support the decree (or in some cases to abstain) when it is time to validate it, which will happen in the plenary session next week. It is not plan A, since the government and parliamentary sources consulted by The Newspaper of Spain indicate that the preference remains to add to CKD and to GNP to the back section. It is plan B. A deputy who knows the negotiations sums it up perfectly: “If Esquerra and the Basque Nationalist Party enter, the small groups will not have any role; but if the one who enters is cs, the little ones will be decisive”.
Those ‘little ones’ are PDeCAT, UPN, Más País, Compromìs, Teruel Exists, Regionalist Party of Cantabria, Nueva Canarias and Canarian Coalition. 13 seats in total. 13 seats that can save the legislative milestone of the progressive government as long as Inés Arrimadas enters the equation. In the Socialist Party, more pragmatic than in United We Can, they know it. What they want to have all the ends tied, since the repeal of the decree is not an option, its leadership has intensified contacts with the 13. “We have to remove it yes or yes, and our obligation is to contemplate and guarantee all the possibilities that favor it,” point out socialist sources.
Sure yeses
days go by and the political priority of the Executive does not gel. In EH Bildu they remain in the “no”. There is no difference between what your representatives in Congress say in public and what they say in private. For example, the spokeswoman, Mertxe Aizpurua, has stated on Radio Euskadi that either the agreement reached by the Government with employers and unions at the social dialogue table is modified or her party will not endorse the labor reform. “Approving this reform is perpetuating that of Mariano Rajoy”, he added, in case there was any doubt. In private, his sources say exactly the same thing. there is no tactic.
ERC has not moved from rejection for identical reasons. Esquerra’s spokesman, Gabriel Rufián, has eluded the cameras and microphones on Tuesday, but in his parliamentary group they insist that as a left-wing formation they cannot support a decree with measures that, as a whole, are far from their demands. Sources familiar with the negotiation have pointed out to The Newspaper of Spain that the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Diaz, retrieved from covidhas intensified contactyes Where they have gone the sources do not reveal, but the insistence points to ERC, PNV, Más País, Compromís… No longer to EH Bildu.
The president of the United We Can group, Jaume Asens, declared at a press conference in Congress that the minister is going to participate this week in a union assembly in Barcelona and that she is going to meet with the workers of the Seat factory in Martorell, one of the industrial lungs of Catalonia. In that case, environmental pressure strategy to the Republicans it will be ostensible, but in Esquerra they count on it and are already doing their own internal work: an agreement with businessmen and with Cs is something that, a priori, would not be very well accepted by the social base of this party.
So 18 pro-independence deputies are currently in the “no”, and to them should be added Néstor Rego, from the BNG. These three formations are the ones that most eagerly contemplate the construction of a common front against the labor reform. The PNV is moving along another path, and for now in the same direction: the rejection.
The president of the nationalists, Andoni Ortúzar, has remarked on Onda Cero that his request, to legally shield the prevalence of sectoral agreements, is still not plausible. Incidentally, he has criticized the possibility that the decree be validated in the end with the votes of Cs. The tension of the moment is obvious because the “peneuvista” deputies who attended the Permanent Council and the plenary session of Congress this Tuesday have been elusive and have avoided speaking with this medium, a symptom, perhaps, that there is no definitive decision. That the PNV negotiates until the last second its a classic.
UPN, key
But let’s go back to the figures from the beginning: 176 and 173. They are the results of the cabals that government negotiators have made. In the former would be, either because they have confirmed that they are going to support the decree, or because they have transmitted that they do not intend to hinder the process (without revealing the vote), the following formations: Citizens, PDeCAT, More Country, Compromís, Teruel Exists, PRC, Nueva Canarias and Canarian Coalition. Are twenty deputies who, together with the 120 of the PSOE and the 34 of United We Can (which has one less for not having filled the vacancy of Alberto Rodríguez), amount to 174.
two are missing here. Two that come from Navarra. The two from UPN in Congress. Parliamentary sources present at the negotiations acknowledge that the talks between socialist leaders and representatives of the Navarrese party have taken place. They have been with those two parliamentarians, Sergio Sayas and Carlos García Adanero, and with the leader of the organization, Javier Esparza. The sources point out that there have been no offers or exchanges, but conversations aimed at checking the mood of the organization. In the environment of the foral formation they believe that they will not be so decisive because in the end the PNV will give its support or abstain, which would be enough.
It will not be an easy decision if, as next week’s plenary session approaches, the position of the Basque Nationalist Party or the ERC does not dance. UPN’s relations with the PSOE in Navarra have become rarefied, especially at the municipal level, which is why the talks for now are not direct and have not translated into concrete proposals.
If the vote is in favor, problem solved. The sum would reach 176, an absolute majority. If it is not, at least it should become an abstention, since it should be remembered that validating a decree requires simple majorities, more yeses than noes.
Tonight @JavierJesparza in @NavarraTV pic.twitter.com/37wg5r7fgs
– UPN (@upn_navarra) January 25, 2022
The situation is very reminiscent of the negotiations prior to the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, in January 2020. The game of votes in favor and votes against was so tight that the PSOE was forced to go from party to party , making individualized and cumbersome negotiations. Two votes made the difference. Two.
Because, as an example, it is enough to review the other sum, that of the parties that, always according to those cabals of government negotiators, they will say or can say “no” to the labor reform: PP, Vox, ERC, EH Bildu, BNG, Forum, JxCat, PNV, the CUP and the deputy of the Mixed Group Pablo Cambronero, formerly of Ciudadanos. 173 in all. As long as this bloc remains intact and the two from UPN join, the labor reform decree will be repealed and the Executive will suffer a colossal political defeat.
the cabals
According to the testimonies of several sources involved in the negotiations, the spokesman for the socialist group, Héctor Gómez, got in touch at the end of last week with all the formations that make up plan B. But it was not the only one. Yolanda Díaz, for example, spoke personally with the leader of the Canarian Coalition, Fernando Clavijo, and members of the minister’s cabinet, for their part, called the PRC deputy, José María Mazón, and telephoned Más País.
The volcano generated a lot of uncertainty for the palmeros. I ask the Government not to do the same with aid. pic.twitter.com/GpSLtxXRFU
– Ana Oramas (@anioramas) January 25, 2022
But Gómez made the rounds and asked about the positions of each one. Canarian Coalition has said that it will support the decree, like the Cantabrian regionalists. Teruel Exists, Compromìs, Más País, PDeCAT and Nueva Canarias have responded that they do not want to be an obstacle, but prefer to take a few more days to study the vote. In the socialist group they consider it ruled out that they speak out against it, which is an advance as things stand.
Tomás Guitarte, the deputy from Teruel, asked for more time to analyze what there are no detrimental effects on contracting in the rural environment, point out the sources of the negotiations, while the Valencian Joan Baldoví expressed his desire to carry out the new labor model without Cs in the equation.
#Labour reform pic.twitter.com/8doQwmGS88
– José María Mazón (PRC) (@JoseMariaMazon) January 11, 2022
Más País, with two deputies, Íñigo Errejón and Inés Sabanés, expressed a similar position. Parliamentary sources point out that Errejón has proposed not to be an impediment because the model that is enshrined in the decree is better than the one established by the PP government, but even so it is not very ambitious. It would be appropriate to change some precepts, he told Gómez, as well as to take advantage of the parliamentary procedure derived from the conversion of the decree into a bill. The Executive, however, does not contemplate that option.
There is a week left for the panorama to clear. It’s still an eternity, but the paths are narrowing. The PSOE, aware of this, does math. Yeses are worth more than noes, many more explanations are not needed.