The Government of Pedro Sanchez He is going to run into again this Tuesday with the ally that causes him the most headaches: Junts. The Congress of Deputies will vote this afternoon on the validation of the royal decree approved by the Executive with housing measures, which includes the extension of rents, and the Catalan independentists have already announced that they will not support the text. This, despite Sumar’s last-minute attempts to attract them to a yes.
This decree was promoted by Sumar in the Council of Ministers and is of vital importance for the space, which has been putting pressure on the PP and Junts since then to try to achieve its validation. However, the efforts have not borne fruit and the text seems hopelessly headed to be overturned by the Lower House.
The Minister of Consumer Affairs, Pablo Bustinduyassured yesterday in an interview on TVE that he saw it as “possible” and “viable” to reach an agreement with the party of Carles Puigdemont. According to him, the Executive would be willing to accept conditions that Junts has put on the table, such as the approval of the franchised VAT for the self-employed or including fiscal measures to support owners. These are initiatives that Sumar does not share but that it could accept in exchange for the decree being validated with the extension of rents, among other measures.
But Junts quickly stepped up to clip Bustinduy’s wings. In several conversations with journalists, the Catalan independentists stated that their position remains the same, that they do not support the decree, and that there is no open negotiation with any government party to move this measure forward. Furthermore, they stressed that They don’t even have the intention to negotiatethat the Executive already knows what measures they want to approve and that the decree, which is not modifiable, is not shared by them.
What they are not so specific about is whether they will vote against or abstain. However, if they abstain there is a possibility that Congress will validate the decree with a single vote difference. Therefore, Junts’ abstention from a norm that it frontally rejects could lead to its approval, a political cost that is difficult for any party to assume.
This extended hand from Sumar to Junts comes after verifying that the pressure on the PP has also failed. The space tried last week to hold the popular party responsible if the decree fell, making them see that the measure is also shared by PP voters and that they would be acting against their interests by not validating the extension.
However, in the PP they did not even flinch in the face of this pressure. The popular ones consider that if the Government wants to validate a decree, He has to convince his partners and not blame the opposition for not giving him their votes.