According to Government sources, Sánchez believes that it makes no sense to negotiate the accounts with the parties pending the Catalan elections. The negotiation was going to be very complicated in the middle of the Catalan pre-campaign because each party would want to get the most possible, and would raise the price with an eye toward very open elections. The president, according to his entourage, is convinced that the PSC will have a very good result and this negotiation can be reopened now with the dispute between ERC and Junts more clarified. Until a few hours ago, the Government was sure that it could produce the 2024 Budget and was negotiating them, but the early elections have disrupted all plans.
“The electoral call in Catalonia alters the political table. The Budgets are extended. Being realistic, we must take advantage of these works and these pre-agreements to work on the 2025 Budgets,” Montero confirmed shortly afterwards on Cadena SER. With three elections in the next three months – Basque in April, Catalan in May and European in June – the Government is now in electoral campaign mode and assumes that the consolidation of the legislature that it expected for the coming weeks will have to wait a little longer. . Even so, sources from the Executive point out that the pacts with ERC and Junts for some issues remain in force. In fact, on Thursday the amnesty law, the key to the legislature, will be approved in Congress, and that is why they trust that there will not be a parliamentary hell in the coming weeks.
This latest turn in Spanish politics, always unpredictable—a few days ago, during his trip to Brazil and Chile, Sánchez assumed that there would be Budgets in 2024 and 2025 and the idea of elections in Catalonia was not on the radar—leaves some internal wounds also in the Government. The rupture finally occurred between the commons, who demanded the withdrawal of the project of Hard Rock megacasino in Tarragona, and the PSC, which insisted that it was not going to withdraw support for that plan and that its pact with ERC for the Budgets was already closed. Comunes and PSC are the representatives in Catalonia of Sumar and the PSOE, the two allies of the coalition.
The Moncloa, according to Government sources, tried to get Yolanda Díaz, vice president and leader of Sumar, to pressure the common people not to overthrow the Budgets. And, in turn, Sumar tried to get Sánchez to pressure Salvador Illa, leader of the PSC, to give up some aspects of the megaproject, especially the reduction of gambling taxation, and thus be able to find an agreement. While in La Moncloa the idea spread that Díaz does not control his party, and has not prevented the common people from indirectly putting the stability of the Government at risk by knocking down the Budgets of an ally, in Sumar the feeling that Illa wanted go to elections and that is why he forced the situation and Sánchez did not stop him.
In both sectors there remains a resentment with the other side that can affect the coalition. Furthermore, now the rivalry between them is opening up in Catalonia, where the PSC blames the commoners for the fiasco and vice versa. There is also an evident tension between the commons and ERC, who are electoral rivals. All this competition will undoubtedly generate some months that are not peaceful for the Government, but in La Moncloa they insist that the legislature is not at risk because Sánchez still has a majority, there is no possibility of a motion of censure and he is the only one who could advance the elections , something that is not part of their plans.
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On the contrary, he is already thinking that after the political recomposition that the elections will leave in Catalonia, he will be able to start working more calmly on the 2025 Budgets. In fact, in La Moncloa they point out that if those for 2024 came out, those for 2025 would go away. to be very contaminated by the Catalan pre-campaign, which at most would have to be held in February 2025. The elections now knock down those of 2024, but they could make those of 2025 easier.
The question now is who the elections in Catalonia are best for, and what consequences they could have on national politics once they conclude. It seems evident that ERC has understood that it was a good time, because the call depended only on them – they could perfectly continue with the extended budgets – and now they want to play the card of an election, even without the possibility of Carles Puigdemont being the candidate. He former president He maintains that it could be, because he believes that the amnesty would arrive for the investiture, but the calculations used in the Government indicate that it is very unlikely that this will be the case. ERC also believes, according to party sources, that the PSC is now weaker due to the Koldo case. Meanwhile, the PSOE and the PSC are convinced that Illa is very strong as a candidate and are sure that he will comfortably be the party with the most votes, although it is not clear if he will be able to govern, as happened in the last elections.
In other words, both ERC and the PSC seem to trust a lot in their strengths, not in vain are the two who have made this decision -ERC calling and the PSC holding the pulse of the commons, which they knew could lead to this progress. Those who are apparently most confused are the commoners and Sumar, who did not want the electoral advance. Sources from this group point out that the surveys do not give them bad results, although they assume that now everyone else will try to blame them for the failure of the Budgets.
Junts also seems to arrive on the wrong foot with this advance, because it still does not have a defined candidate and is waiting for the return of its leader, Puigdemont, or the withdrawal of the disqualification of its organization secretary, Jordi Turull. The PP looks well placed because it can aspire to recover the entire Ciudadanos vote and also a part of Vox, which is in low numbers. Even so, the popular ones, even improving a lot, have very little weight in Catalonia and do not enter into any equation to decide the Government. In any case, they are very open elections, like all Catalan elections, and the stability of Pedro Sánchez’s Government will also depend on their result. For now, it has already had an immediate consequence: it has left him without Budgets this entire year.
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