Junts (Puigdemont’s party) rejected yesterday in Congress the ‘omnibus’ decree that included the revaluation of pensions, the extension of transport discounts, and aid for those affected by the DANA. However, the measure also contained other types of initiatives that it would have been incomprehensible for the political right to support, such as the suspension of evictions during 2025, which facilitates squatting.
The rejection highlights the parliamentary weakness of the Executive but also the failure of its strategy to use these types of decrees as a catch-all to include initiatives of all kinds to pressure political parties. If the Government truly wants to advance its proposals, it must present them separately, as Junts and the PP demand, with the latter being the party leading the opposition and which, in a surprising turn, the Government reproaches for losing votes.
On the same day, the Government suffered another resounding defeat when Junts and PNV, essential partners for the Government, rejected the tax on energy companies. ‘They knew perfectly well that this tax was not going to go ahead,’ reproached the PNV spokesperson in Congress. Under these conditions, it seems impossible to negotiate this year’s budget, which should have been presented last October.
However, the ‘dead-end labyrinth’ – as described by the leader of the PSOE in Castilla La Mancha – in which the PSOE has found itself by trying to govern allied with right-wing parties (Junts and PNV) and far-left parties (Bildu, Sumar, Podemos…) does not seem to pose a major problem for the President of the Government, who is confident that his partners are willing to humiliate him time and again but not to let him fall. They will never encounter a weaker government more willing to meet all their demands.
