Yesterday morning, there was nothing to suggest that Podemos would be responsible for giving the Government some air. What’s more, he pointed out that it would be quite the opposite. The purple ones had arrived on Wednesday with a strategy of saying no to everything, being firm in their claims and threatening to overthrow two crucial measures for the Executive: the arms embargo on Israel and the Sustainable Mobility Law. Even the members of the Government who normally ask for “confidence” acknowledged that they did not believe that they were going to carry out the two votes.
But, in the end, the formation of Ione Belarra did not fulfill any of its threats and ended up being key to the approval of the two initiatives. If before the Plenary Session it already seemed that Podemos was imitating Carles Puigdemontfor setting impossible conditions and being intransigent, at the end of the Plenary Session this imitation was already confirmed, because the threats came to nothing and the one who benefits is Pedro Sánchez, just as happens with the independentists.
The first known reverse was that of the embargo. The purple formation had said actively and passively that it was a “fake” embargo, that it was a “strainer”, a “Gruyer cheese”. That is to say, it was not a real embargo because it allowed Spain to continue being used as a transit point for weapons to Israel and because the Government had reserved a clause to bypass the embargo on the grounds of national interest. They even explained that four ships had skipped the embargo since Moncloa approved the royal decree.
The rest of the partners, also critical of the embargo, were betting on processing it as a bill in order to include amendments. But this was not worth it to Podemos because, they said, when that is done the initiatives end up in a drawer. The big question was whether Podemos would abstain or vote against. If they abstained, they showed their anger but the decree passed and if they voted against it, it fell. In the end, he voted for.
According to Podemos sources, the vote in favor was in exchange for nothing. Absolutely free, without negotiations involved. They explain that, although they are against the decree, they do not want to be “the PSOE’s excuse to do nothing and to continue maintaining military relations with Israel.” Regarding their vote in favor, they explain that once the political decision was made to maintain it, they did not want to risk problems with parliamentary arithmetic and its inadvertent decline.
And the truth is that there could be problems, as the Sustainable Mobility Law later reflected. The Government had reached that vote with 175 tied votes, that of the investiture majority, but without the four from Podemos, and 171 against, those from PP, Vox and UPN. Once again, the ball was in the purple court’s court: if they abstained, it went out, if they voted against, there was a tie and it would end up being knocked down.
Everything was very tight and, furthermore, it is a fundamental law for the Government because it ensures that there are 10,000 million euros of European funds at stake. But the devilish parliamentary arithmetic brought the situation to the brink of a heart attack. First, it was learned that the PP deputy Guillermo Mariscal He was on a honeymoon trip and they had not accepted his telematic vote, because that reason is not contemplated in the Regulations. Thus, there would be 170 votes against and the law would be approved regardless of what Podemos did.
Later, it was commented that two deputies from the yes bloc had also had problems when casting their vote electronically and that could change the numbers. But before there was time to fully clarify what had happened, the final vote took place and Podemos abstained, thus facilitating the approval of the law.
The purple formation had also threatened to overturn this norm if the Government did not commit to stopping the expansions of the El Prat airport and of port of Valencia. According to Podemos sources, Belarra was negotiating until the last minute with the head of Transport, Óscar Puente, on this matter and the Executive ended up committing to stop the expansion of the airport until 2031. No agreement was reached regarding the port of Valencia.
That pact justified the abstention of the purples. They assure that if they had obtained the port of Valencia, they would have voted in favor. But the Government no longer needed that, it was enough for them not to vote against it. And although everything was at stake for one afternoon, Sánchez went to sleep with two parliamentary victories and the investiture bloc more or less rebuilt. Not completely, but it’s two more victories.