Now or never. After more than 2,000 days of blockade by the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), the feeling that the PSOE exudes is “optimism.” The agreement is close. The environment that is being generated is, at least, to create the conditions conducive to this. Prudence is total, because it is not the first time that the pact has been tested and derailed due to issues of political opportunity. Or, rather, of inopportunity. For this reason, the socialists have shielded contacts as much as possible, maintaining total “discretion” to prevent any leak from ruining what they consider the definitive attempt.
And it is the final one, because the President of the Government issued an ultimatum to the PP so that, before the end of this month of June, an agreement is reached. Otherwise, Pedro Sánchez himself advanced that his Executive, hand in hand with Parliament, “will provide a response to the constitutional outrage of kidnapping the government of the judges.” The president anticipated that the power to make appointments in the judicial leadership would be withdrawn from the CGPJ, that is, in the presidencies of the National Court, the provincial courts, the superior courts of justice or those that make up the chambers of the Supreme Court. A way to make the blockade in the future less attractive, for any political party, or what Sánchez defined as “the perverse incentive” that, in his opinion, means that the main opposition party has not agreed to a renewal for five years. Currently, the CGPJ cannot make appointments with the mandate expired – after a reform of the LOPJ in 2021 –, which has generated a situation of true collapse due to the impossibility of filling the vacancies that are being generated.
It’s the countdown. One week before the deadline expires, Ferraz shows their “optimism” for the opportunity to reach an agreement “sooner rather than later.” The spokesperson for the socialist leadership, Esther Peña, said at a press conference that she “hopes that the renewal is a fact.” “In a few days it will be a reality,” she encouraged. This public optimism, added to the “confidence” expressed privately by other socialist sources, suggests that, this time, an agreement can be reached with the PP. “Let’s hope we don’t have to exhaust the deadline and reach an agreement sooner,” they say. However, socialist sources confirm that the deadline can be extended beyond June, already into the month of July, if the contacts prosper and, while waiting to close a three-way meeting with the vice president of the European Commission, Vera Jourová, something important so that the PP can politically dress the agreement.
The sort of truce that was established in the usual Monday appearance also points in this direction, in which the spokesperson did not use the usual string of reproaches that she usually dedicates to the main opposition party for failing to comply with the Constitution. Yesterday in Ferraz they were moderate in their criticism of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who, yes, continues to put pressure on him so that he does not allow himself to be carried away by the least inclined sector of his party to reach any understanding with the PSOE and with Sánchez. In this way, they encouraged him to “bring the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, into line” and to claim her leadership internally. “He no longer gives him the grade for moderate, we will see if he gives him the leader of the opposition,” said Peña.
In Moncloa they always maintained that, once the electoral cycle was over, after the European elections, the “window of opportunity” opened to reach an agreement with the PP. In the Executive they maintain that this is their “plan A”, the one that has the least political cost for the Government, but given the systematic refusal of Feijóo’s people, they were already considering launching other alternative routes that would allow the unblocking. “Groundhog Day is over,” Sánchez himself warned in an interview on TVE. Addressing other types of reforms would shift the focus to the Executive, instead of keeping it on the PP – “which is the one who fails to comply with the Constitution,” they point out in Ferraz – and this would also put Europe on alert, which has already warned about formulas with a democratic deficit such as the reduction of parliamentary majorities to elect members of the CGPJ. But in the Executive they are already willing to assume the price of this movement and assure, however, that any alternative formula that is implemented would have the endorsement of the European Union.
For its part, in Genoa the most pact-oriented path is also being imposed, convinced that it is an issue that needs to be deactivated as soon as possible, above all, given a horizon in which the Government can advance alone and maneuver with a new system that already It is generating suspicion in the judiciary. At the moment, the popular ones limit the agreement only to the CGPJ, while the Government assures that a global pact is being sought, with other organizations also pending renewal, such as the Bank of Spain, the CNMV, the CNMC or RTVE and that it is not possible renew any of them without first unblocking the governing body of the judges.