The President of the Government arrived and declared: “Spain is experiencing one of the best moments in its democratic history.” A few minutes earlier, before that same microphone installed this Saturday in the Congress courtyard, the opposition leader proclaimed: “Never had a Government degraded the institutions so much.” And even earlier, the regional president of Madrid raised the level of the alert: “This centuries-old nation is being torn apart.” Two parallel realities, two universes unrecognizable from each other, as if Pedro Sánchez, Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Isabel Díaz Ayuso did not live in the same country. The institutional pomp to celebrate in Congress was once again overshadowed by the bipartisan anger. It has been repeated every year since , but going up one step higher than the previous one in the escalation of confrontations.
The traditional celebration of December 6 brought together, as always, the main authorities of the State, except the King, and more political representation from the left than from the right. Vox beats its chest boasting of its constitutionalist faith, while boycotting these types of institutional acts, as well as the sovereigntist formations, those whom Santiago Abascal’s party calls “enemies of Spain.” So the right flank of the Chamber appeared only through the PP, with Feijóo and five of its regional presidents at the helm. On the left, however, in addition to the PSOE, all the Sumar ministers and a representative of Podemos, the deputy Javier Sánchez Serna, attended.
A unique liturgy is consolidated year after year. Evocations of the spirit of dialogue that made the Basic Law possible 47 years ago resonate, along with calls to keep it alive. In her institutional speech, the president of the Cortes, the socialist Francina Armengol, invoked the few issues that have recently been approved with a broad agreement – the constitutional reform for , the and the par law – to introduce the inevitable appeal: “We must give more examples like these to the citizens we represent. Be a paradigm of dialogue, be a space for agreement that society feels proud of. That is the value of democracy.” Words destined to be lost as much as the steps that give name to the Congress hall where they were spoken.
The commemoration served as a premiere for a new guest: the brand new president of the Valencian Community. Juanfran Pérez Llorca was the first to appear before the microphone that is installed in the patio so that the political leaders can make brief statements before the solemn ceremony. Carlos Mazón’s replacement arrived with the typical conciliatory message: “People are tired of tension, of fights, of lack of understanding…”. Maybe people are tired of all that. The one who is not in any way is Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
Armed with a neat notebook of notes, the Madrid president took over at the microphone and within a few seconds the machine gun was already cracking. We are experiencing some of “the worst episodes in our history”, because under Sánchez’s mandate the process of breaking up Spain “is going without brakes”. Ayuso reiterated his refusal to remember that the current headquarters of the Madrid Executive was during the Franco regime. And without waiting for anyone to ask him, he decided to do there in Congress, in the middle of such a solemn day, what he had not done until now in his own regional Assembly: offer long explanations about , where the directors of the company that operates him ordered cuts to patients to maximize their profits.
For several minutes, Ayuso basically dedicated himself to reducing the case to an episode of “quarrels between managers” and attacking this newspaper for uncovering the scandal. While the Madrid president expanded on her exculpatory proclamation – punctuated, of course, with new attacks on sanchismo -, the leader of her party had to wait his turn with the rest of his regional barons.
Feijóo didn’t take long to draw either. “This is the Government that has attacked the Constitution the most,” he stated. The leader of the PP already presented himself as the next president, the one who will return coexistence to Spain. When the Magna Carta turns 50, in 2028, there will be, he predicted, a “Constitutionalist Government”, which will replace the current “decadent and dissolving” drift with a policy “restorative of the constitutional text”.
Sánchez was not in the mood to provide a day of truce either. He spoke ironically about the “prophets of disaster”, who say that “Spain is sinking” and is becoming a dictatorship. “Those same people who say that are the heirs of the dictatorship or those who make agreements with those nostalgic for the dictatorship,” he emphasized. He did not mention Ayuso, although it was not necessary either. It was very clear who he was referring to when he accused the regional presidents of the PP of endangering the welfare state and invoked article 43 of the Constitution, which enshrines the “protection of the right to health.”
Yolanda Díaz, second vice president and visible head of Sumar in the Government, also evoked other articles of the Constitution, 47, which recognizes the right to housing. A way to reiterate that his party will continue to pressure the PSOE Díaz also evoked the Transition, but from another perspective: to highlight the role of the labor movement in the fight for democracy. The vice president called for a “calm rethinking of the Constitution” with a view to “developing the social State.”
Outside of the daily domestic fights, the president responded forcefully to . “Europe is not going to let itself be protected by anyone nor will it be a vassal of any power,” he emphasized. Armengol’s speech was also a hymn to Europeanism given the proximity, on January 1, of the 40th anniversary of Spain’s entry into the EU. To underline this, the event included the reading of articles of the Constitution by young people from several European countries studying in Madrid. The president also spoke about housing problems, violence against women, racism and the climate crisis. And he highlighted a task: “Defend democratic principles against discourses that see the loss of freedoms as an advantage and attraction.” Regarding the Constitution itself, he asked to “adapt it to the diverse territorial reality of our country.”
Once the event was over, with the rooms and hallways near the chamber completely packed, the audience indulged in wine, tapas and conversation. Few interactions were seen between left and right. Sánchez and Feijóo formed the classic huddles with journalists just three meters away from each other. They didn’t even greet each other. That too is becoming a tradition.
