The tacit confluence between PP and Junts dealt this Wednesday the worst parliamentary blow suffered by this Government and once again cast serious doubts on the viability of the legislature. The national right and the Catalan independence movement coincided again in their maneuvers to punish Pedro Sánchez, this time with very serious direct consequences on the citizens: their joint vote against the omnibus decree of the Executive causes the momentary freezing of and some aid to those affected by the Dana or the La Palma volcano.
Each parliamentary defeat of the Government is usually greeted with enthusiastic applause from the right-wing bench. This time, however, the reaction was just a thick silence when the president of Congress, Francina Armengol, announced the result of the omnibus decree: 177 votes against, 171 in favor and one abstention. The Popular Party, with the indispensable help of Junts, had made the Executive bite the dust, but the consequences for ordinary people of that political slap made it inadvisable to welcome it with any type of celebration.
The PP voted against the very broad decree, with more than a hundred articles and with numerous social measures, simply clinging to one of the issues included in that kind of catch-all: the current headquarters of the Cervantes Institute after having been the Basque Government for the Republic. In the case of Junts, the group did not even give a specific reason. Its spokesperson, Míriam Nogueras, had already been heralded by Carles Puigdemont and unleashed an incendiary attack, by far the harshest of her group since it supported Sánchez’s investiture 14 months ago. His panoply of disqualifications of the socialists included terms such as “manipulators”, “shell dealers”, “pirates” or “blackmailers”.
PP and Junts assured that they were willing to repair the consequences on the citizens of their political punishment of the Government. The popular parties have already presented a bill to revalue pensions whose approval, in the best of cases, would take weeks. Nogueras, meanwhile, called on the Executive to present separate decrees with the increase in pensions for retirees and aid for transport users.
But the broken one is of much larger proportions. Parliamentary groups have often criticized the Government’s tendency to include the most varied issues in its decrees and this was no exception. Among the issues that are paralyzed are moratoriums on evictions and cuts in basic supplies to vulnerable families, tax deductions for energy improvements in homes and vehicles, updating the deliveries of State funds to autonomous communities and city councils or the 4.5 million that were going to be allocated to Ceuta – governed by the PP – for the reception of immigrant minors.
The first parliamentary plenary session of the year exposed in all its crudeness the precariousness of the Government, which saw two of the three decrees it carried fall. The other defeat was taken for granted: the attempt to extend the tax on large energy companies for another year, agreed by PSOE and Sumar with the groups further to the left, knowing that it would be overturned by what several spokespersons once again defined as a “conjunction of the right”, in this case with the addition of the PNV. The debate illustrated the ideological clash between the allies of the Executive, especially between the two Basque sovereigntist forces, EH Bildu and PNV. And it led to another noisy attack against the PSOE by the leader of Podemos, Ione Belarra, whose verbal escalation went so far as to accuse them of “betraying the citizens” and even promoting “social violence.”
The only victory that the Government achieved also had a certain bitter tinge. Congress did validate the decree that includes the agreement reached last summer between employers and unions to modify the pension system, among other things, in order to facilitate the voluntary continuation of activity after having exceeded the retirement age. But the Executive saved this challenge thanks to the support of the PP, because both Junts and the sovereignist left – ERC, EH Bildu and BNG – and Podemos voted against.
