Fernando González Urbaneja | The Congress will have a hearing for the 4 jurists chosen by Pedro Sánchez and Félix Bolaños (PSOE) and Pablo Casado and Teodoro García Egea (PP), managers of the two majority – necessary – parties to fill the vacant posts in the Constitutional Court. And then the MPs will vote in a disciplined manner so that the proposal gets the green light with a qualified majority…
Fernando González Urbaneja | Someone must have told Pablo Casado that by being a grump he does not gain political space or win more votes. This has been noticed in the week’s control session, when Sánchez was surprised by the offer to agree on the renewal of the pending institutional bodies (except for the General Council of the Judiciary). In this way, the Socialists’ accusation that the Popular Party is…
Fernando González Urbaneja | The latest poll published by La Vanguardia shows 39% of Catalans in favour of independence and 53% against. With these figures, it is understandable that ERC is opting for the slow road, to continue to stir up public opinion in order to achieve its goal, to reach its Ithaca. There was also a question on the language spoken at home: Spanish 41%; Catalan 29%; indistinct 30%. Everyone will draw their own conclusions, but the claim that Catalan society is unanimous or clearly in favour of the “indepes” proposals does not enjoy sufficient support. Conllevanza rather than coexistence.
Fernando González Urbaneja | In Brussels, the leaders of the European Commission do not understand, do not share, the Spanish debate on the renewal of the Council of the Judiciary. They do not say what should be done, it does not fall within their remit. However, they warn that it sounds bad, smells bad and damages the reputation of Spanish democracy. It seems this well-known and publicised opinion does not…
Fernando González Urbaneja | The deadlock to renew the institutions (more than a thousand days of delay in the CGPJ) indicates that the quality of Spanish democracy is mediocre. And it is not because of the regulated procedures, but because of the application of those procedures by the responsible (or rather irresponsible) politicians. Those in government (socialists and partners) accuse the opposition of being unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the latter’s response is…
Fernando González Urbaneja | Politics is the art of the possible; democracy requires mediation, containment, explanation, persuasion, convincing… None of this characterises Spanish politics, which are sliding towards the opposite, towards the impossible, towards exaggeration, simplification and polarisation. Politics based on brinkmanship (all or nothing) instead of pragmatic possibilism, gradualism, is heading for failure. The PP requires the PSOE (Casado to Sánchez) with non-negotiable demands to renew the institutions. And…
Fernando González Urbaneja | In Europe we know of cases where governments have been blocked for up to a year or more and states have continued to function reasonably normally. The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and even Germany have maintained deadlocks to form coalition governments for many months. The same happened in Spain during the electoral agony/anomaly of 2019, so we already have experience. But these difficulties being transferred from the…
Fernando González Urbaneja | Pablo Iglesias is not in government, but his objectives are still on course. As he himself explained, his immediate political action should focus on weakening two powers: the Crown and “los togados”, the judiciary. In his opinion the latter is in the hands of Francoist reactionaries who must be subjugated. His thesis is that the judiciary should be subordinated to the executive, to the will of…
Fernando G. Urbaneja | The Constitutional Court has declared unconstitutional the Government’s implementation of the State of Alarm to decree the confinements… An old principle of good government (and of journalism) dictates that when in doubt it is advisable to abstain. In other words, to behave prudently, because there is no better solution to a problem than to avoid it. There was a risk of unconstitutionality in the alarm decrees, warned of from the outset; opinions were divided amongst constitutionalists, but there were well-founded expectations that it was not the right rule. It was not, narrowly, by 6 votes to 5. But the majority decided the chosen rule was not constitutional and that there was no appeal and no way back.
Fernando G. Urbaneja | The leader of the PP, Pablo Casado, is floundering as head of the opposition between the harsh discourse (with one eye on VOX) and the responsible one, with the other eye on Moncloa. He wants to appear as a reliable leader to govern, but also as a tough guy in the face of his adversaries. And little by little, he is sliding more towards the latter…