The legislature of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, is in collapse, although he has the advantage that there is no alternative that can remove him from La Moncloa until he decides to press the button to dissolve the Cortes Generales.
For this reason, all the executive branches have started working to counteract the campaign of the opposition, and of some socialists, who say that one cannot govern without governing, that is, without the legislature.
The official mantra is that they will do it with or without a budget, that they have many laws to develop and, in addition, a lot of money from European funds still to be spent.
The official lyrics will be repeated endlessly, although the socialist group is aware that facing a Congress against them every week is a real ordeal: the President of the Government meets with them today to reiterate his confidence that he still has three years ahead of him.
Moncloa also sees itself capable of overcoming the problem that they sold the Amnesty Law as the necessary payment to be able to continue making progressive laws, and the facts are turning their backs on them.
In reality, the main line that guides the Government’s strategy is to gain time and entangle the PP in false debates, which are known to have no way out from the start, but which “heat up” the media debates and, in doing so, manage to set the agenda.
It doesn’t matter that it is an agenda based on nothing. Given the difficulties of legislating, the entire machinery of Moncloa is focused on finding a way to disguise this circumstance.
There is no confidence that anything concrete will come out of the meetings they have announced they will hold with the various regional presidents to discuss regional financing, nor that they will be able to push through either the General State Budget or a fiscal reform agenda.
But that is the least of it, since Moncloa is satisfied with these issues serving to fuel controversial debates that hide the paralysis of the socialist government.
He has in his favour that Puigdemont is not interested in calling new general elections either.
The need to gain time goes beyond the date of the ERC Congress (where the internal division does not affect the commitment to maintain channels of negotiation with the Government) and Junts (with a strategic debate, but without anyone questioning Carles Puigdemont’s position).
The frustration of the fugitive former president of the Generalitat, faced with the lack of a clear horizon for the development of the amnesty, makes him an uncomfortable enemy, who is no longer interested in even obtaining more powers or more milestones in the advance of independence, since he has reached the conclusion that anything that advances along that path has no way of being profitable.
The government in charge, in theory, of developing it would be the one headed by the socialist Salvador Illa since last month.
This challenge to gain time also affects the implementation of the investiture agreement that they signed with Esquerra for Illa to occupy the Presidency of the Generalitat.
The Catalan quota is going to be a long-term issue, and there are no plans to detail before the end of the year what the PSC and ERC wanted to say in the text published on the investiture pact.
The agreement talks about a semester to develop it and Sánchez will let the ball roll without committing to anything, because that is how he believes he can keep the Republicans on a leash for longer.
However, Moncloa knows that it has in its favour the fact that Puigdemont is as little interested as they are in holding general elections, and this is another factor that will help them gain time.
The stubborn resistance of the Prime Minister has already undermined even the opposition’s hopes that his weakness would translate into a call for elections in the medium term, and now they are putting it in terms of “this will take a long time” and “we must be patient.”
Their way of facing a legislature that could be long is to mobilize the party as if elections were going to be held, although they are wary of this hypothesis in the medium term, and direct the opposition to other issues that bite into the social agenda of the coalition government.
Sánchez has a party that has been devastated territorially, with two exceptions: in Catalonia he has taken power away from the separatists and in the Basque Country he has a PNV that is more dependent than ever on the socialists.
The Basque nationalists want a budget, and they also need to gain time to reposition themselves against Bildu, which is on the rise. In addition, the Basque nationalists are mediating with Junts so that the board does not blow up.