“The political, economic and media right want us progressives to give up and we are not going to give up.” It is Pedro Sánchez’s declaration of intent before the start of a new academic year that will be especially complicated by the energy crisis and the rise in prices, and it summarizes the turn that the President of the Government gave to his speech before the summer break. Faced with his mandate, which he sums up in an attempt to defend the middle and working class, he places Alberto Núñez Feijóo on the side of a powerful minority. “The proposals of the PP and its opposition to the Iberian mechanism represents a certain insolvency and a desperate defense of the interests of the large energy companies in our country,” said the socialist in an interview on TVE.
“The power of money is great, but in a democracy there is no power greater than that of the majority,” said a Sánchez who emulates the one who took over the reins of the PSOE in front of the party apparatuses and the powers that he denounced were in against a progressive agreement. “Many citizens may think that every four years they vote but they do not elect those who decide. We have to tell those powers that they cannot condition the country’s politics”, he added about the resistance to coalition decisions such as special taxes for energy companies and financial corporations due to the extraordinary benefits they are having in these times due to the rise in energy prices and tightening of monetary policy.
The same day that Congress has endorsed the admission of these taxes with the vote against PP, Vox and Ciudadanos, Sánchez has insisted on the need to make a “fair distribution of the burdens” left by the crisis. “We have to make sure that the costs of this crisis are distributed equitably”, reiterated the president, who maintains that there are companies that are benefiting from the current situation just as, as he has stated, the technology companies came out better off in the pandemic.
What he has rejected is the Podemos proposal to establish a cap on variable mortgages. “They are not allowed in the EU treaty”, he explained: “I share the analysis made by United We Can and also UGT that the tightening of monetary policy, which is necessary, does not translate into an increase in mortgages that puts families in more difficulties. This explains why the Government has proposed a tax on windfall profits on financial and energy companies”.
Moncloa wants to avoid confrontation with the minority partner and for this reason has lowered the tone with the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, for her attempt to reach an agreement with the large supermarkets to put a cap on some basic foods. At first the socialist wing disqualified the proposal and in recent days they maintain that a maximum price cannot be imposed but they endorse that the Minister of Labor try to reach an understanding with the companies. Sánchez has made an “appeal to shared responsibility” so that prices do not skyrocket, affecting pockets. Proud of the food chain law that was born as a result of an agreement so that producers would not sell at a loss, the president has defended “a balanced analysis between production and distribution.”
Sánchez has been far from what he has called the “political offal” when the journalist Xavier Fortes has asked him about the polls and, although he has said that the rulers are not there to complain but to solve problems, he has slipped a certain weariness for the complexity of the mandate that he carries behind him by recognizing that “except for a zombie invasion” he has faced numerous unprecedented situations such as the pandemic or now the effects of the war in Ukraine.
In a national key, Moncloa’s determination is to point to the PP, which has grown in all the polls since the arrival of Feijóo. And the blockade of the Judiciary is one of the issues that most unnerves the Executive. Sánchez maintains that Feijóo’s party wants the blockade to persist in order to maintain a conservative majority in the Constitutional Court that jeopardizes laws that have appealed such as euthanasia, abortion, education or even the vote on the labor reform, which it went ahead due to the error of a PP deputy after the two UPN parliamentarians broke party discipline.
A few minutes before the expiration of the term given by law to the Judiciary to appoint the two magistrates that correspond to it in the court of guarantees, Sánchez has assured that he knows that there are negotiations underway and has been convinced that it will be resolved soon . “I have no doubt that in a few days we will have the proposal of these two magistrates,” he assured.
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