Seven years go a long way. Four changes in legislature, new political colors that entered the lower house with force, a successful motion of censure, a fallen leader who is now president of the government and other emerging stars who ended up resigning, three states of alarm and even a Parliament closed by a confinement. However, there is a parliamentary event that in seven years had not found a place. The debate on the state of the nation had not been held since February 2015. The star plenary session of Congress returns this Tuesday, seven years after its last edition.
This kind of annual review of the state of the country and the management of the Government was established by Felipe González in 1983, in the second legislature. Although there is no obligation to convene it, the parliamentary tradition was to do it every year, except those in which there is an appointment with the polls. Sánchez, after four years in government, was the only president who had not submitted to this great debate parliamentary since its establishment. He arrived at La Moncloa in June 2018 after a motion of censure, 2019 was a year with two elections and in 2020 the pandemic broke out. But 2021 ended without the socialist summoning it of his own free will. He is the president who has allowed the longest time to pass since his inauguration without calling this debate: 917 days will have elapsed since his inauguration, on January 7, 2020. Mariano Rajoy He spent almost two years in office without submitting: he was going to celebrate it on the date of the motion of censure.
The Constitution does not regulate, it does not even mention, the debate on the state of the nation. It is recorded as a communication from the Government, as Felipe González did when he raised it for the first time and had the approval of Manuel Fraga, and is governed in accordance with the provisions of articles 196 and 197 of the Regulation of the lower house. On most occasions it has been celebrated in the first half of the year, and its course has been shaped rather by uses and customs. José María Aznar and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero are the two presidents who have never missed an appointment with this debate: they called it year after year, when it was time and without setbacks.
eternal interventions
The plenary session on Tuesday will start at 12 noon with the presentation of the President of the Government, with no time limit. In the first debate, that of 1983, the then leader of Alianza Popular, Manuel Fraga, pointed out what would be a common complaint in the successive ones. “Perhaps it can be found that there is little message for such a long film & rdquor ;, she told Felipe González after he presented for almost two hours the balance of his government. That was the longest inaugural intervention, although closely followed by that of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in 2005, with an hour and almost three quarters. The socialist president also holds the record for having dispatched it the fastest, with just 50 minutes in 2007. Aznar’s ‘face to face’ with the different opposition leaders he faced in his two governments-Gonzalez, Borrell Y Almunia– They also had a reputation for lengths, because the sessions always ended after midnight.
After the break, at four in the afternoon the debate will resume with the interventions of the parliamentary groups, in order from highest to lowest, with the exception of the socialists, who will do so last. The spokespersons have half an hour for their interventions. Pedro Sánchez can intervene at any time to respond to the different matches one by one or do so cumulatively and without a time limit. And the spokespersons have a reply turn of ten minutes each. The foreseeable thing is that it lasts until Wednesday, a day in which the spokespersons who would not have had time to do so will intervene. Later, the plenary session will continue with other matters including the agenda: the consideration of a PSOE bill and the agreement to expressly process the reform of the law of the Judicial Power.
resolutions
After the dialectic duels, the parties will have 30 minutes to present their resolution proposals – up to fifteen per parliamentary group – which will be voted on in Thursday’s session. They are initiatives of political content, without much practical importance, but with a lot of symbolic load: losing several or some important ones is a defeat for the Executive that can show him weakened.
Half an hour before the start of the debate, at 9:30 in the morning, the Board of Spokespersons will decide the order of debate of these resolution proposals, which will be defended by their authors in order from least to greatest in turns of ten minutes. They will vote individually, with the amendments that their authors accept, and those that achieve a simple majority will be approved. The Government has also wanted that plenary session, the last of the calendar of sessions, to vote on the opinion of the law of democratic memory, the reform of the law of the Judicial Power and the last two decrees, that of anti-crisis measures and that of health personnel.
moments to remember
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Despite the tediousness, the star parliamentary appointment has been the scene of some of the most remembered debates. Aznar coined his famous “!Go away, Mr. Gonzalez!” in 1994, or Rajoy’s harsh accusation of Zapatero in 2005 of having “betrayed the dead” at the hands of ETA. This will be the first time that the leader of the main opposition party does not reply to the Prime Minister: Alberto Nunez Feijoo He will be in the ranks of the popular parliamentary group, but he cannot intervene because he is not a deputy. The spokesperson will Cuca Gamarra.
The last time it was held, Rajoy and Sánchez threw thick phrases at each other. “I take you much more seriously than many of yours, and my job is difficult for me & rdquor ;, said the first to the second. At that meeting, corruption and banking rescue were the star topics, Rosa Díez was one of the protagonists, Alberto Garzón pointed to Greece and who put on the table the lack of proposals for the “political problem of Catalonia & rdquor; it was Josep Antoni Duran Lleida. In times of political instability, seven years is an eternity.