The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and the acting Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, have ended a long-awaited meeting after little more than an hour with no agreements to conclude. During the meeting, the candidate designated by Felipe VI handed Sánchez a document ‘For the equality and welfare of all Spaniards’, an eleven-point agreement in which he asks for support for his investiture in order to tackle six State pacts (for democratic regeneration, for the welfare state, for economic recovery, for families, for a water pact and a territorial pact, to guarantee equality among Spaniards and avoid a political deadlock) in a legislature that would last two years and that, as expected, Sánchez has rejected.
The PP claims that Feijóo has offered the agreement “for the sake of centrality so that the most voted list can govern our country, as has been the custom for the last 45 years” and that this would “deactivate” the “influence that pro-independence parties seek to have. “Faced with the risk of repeating elections in four months, Feijóo offers a mandate of 24 months to undertake the pending reforms for our country,” the PP added.
The PP candidate argues that there is an alternative to a scenario in which the governability of Spain depends on independence, that of “a great pact for a period of time to calm Spain” as “those who brought us here” did.
“I have offered a pact of State, but Sánchez prefers to make a pact with the pro-independence supporters”, he lamented to the press after assuring that the Socialist candidate prefers to “negotiate amnesty, referendums”, and has flatly rejected that 6% of the vote achieved by the pro-independence supporters should condition governability and decide the course of an entire country.
Sánchez, for his part, in addition to rejecting the offer, has proposed to Feijóo that they commit to renewing the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) before 31 December, whoever is elected as President of the Government.
This is Feijóo’s first meeting before the investiture debate on 26 and 27 September, to which, if there are no last-minute changes or surprises, he will arrive without sufficient support to be elected president, with 174 votes compared to the 176 of the absolute majority (137 from the PP, plus 33 from Vox, plus one from UPN and another from Coalición Canaria).
