Sánchez yields and will appear in Congress every two months to move forward with the state of alarm

The PSOE has yielded to its first intentions and has agreed with the ERC group in Congress that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, attend the Chamber every two months to explain the situation in the country and the evolution of the fight against the pandemic to In exchange for the independence formation to support the new state of alarm decree tomorrow Thursday and its extension for six months, until May 9.

The agreement was closed on Tuesday night between the PSOE parliamentary spokesmen, Adriana Lastra, and ERC, Gabriel Rufián.

Other parties had proposed similar measures but the PSOE opted in the end for the solution worked out by ERC because it combines going to Parliament periodically, but not every month, and it gives the Executive and the Ministry of Health a little more margin to manage the crisis caused in this second wave of covid-19, according to socialist sources.

In the PSOE they assure that they already have more than enough support to carry out the decree tomorrow after the debate in Congress.

The initial proposal of the Government and the PSOE consisted of a state of alarm that could be extended until May 9, with the idea of ​​facilitating co-management to the maximum to the autonomies to the point of giving the presidents of the communities the ability to lift or impose more restrictive actions as of November 9.

But the Executive wanted to extend the legal coverage of the state of alarm for six months to avoid the difficult appearances every 15 days in Congress to validate the successive decrees and their extensions as happened last spring.

However, most groups, on the left, on the right and nationalist formations, questioned whether the Executive took advantage of this possibility to avoid explanations about the evolution of the pandemic in Congress, where the sovereignty of the voters resides.

And in recent days they have demanded that the Government appear in the lower house at least every two months, although some party has even required that these presences be monthly and by the president of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez.

The PSOE established negotiations since Sunday, when the Council of Ministers approved the last alarm decree, with other formations in search of the greatest possible support, except for Vox.

The president even spoke with the leader of the opposition, Pablo Casado.

The groups, in the Chamber, also opened various avenues of negotiation among themselves and even prepared to process amendments to the decree to demand those more frequent presence of the head of government.

The Socialists chose to close the agreement with ERC to prioritize that it was the group that was quickest to facilitate their votes to the alarm decree and because it was satisfied that those appearances of the president were every two months and not every month.

The spokespersons for Más País in Congress, Íñigo Errejón, and that of Compromís, Joan Baldoví, immediately joined the agreement between the PSOE and ERC this morning and announced that they will also give their votes to the alarm decree, but maintain their amendment in the sense that the presence of the president in Congress is every month and they want that position to be voted on tomorrow as well.

A position to which other formations could be added, such as Ciudadanos, and that with the already confirmed support of PNV and United We Can, will provide the Government with comfortable parliamentary support in that vote of close to 190 parliamentarians in favor.

The PP immediately clarified that this agreement is not enough.

The Popular Group in Congress has registered, as it had announced, a resolution proposal so that the state of alarm lasts only eight weeks, to save the Christmas campaign.

In other words, that it lasted until December 20, with a parliamentary control in which Pedro Sánchez would render accounts in the hemicycle every fifteen days.

The PP demands that the president be the one who appears tomorrow in the congressional debate and maintains its demand that these two months be used to undertake the necessary legal changes in the legislation it would order to avoid the exceptionality of the state of alarm.

The PP has also opened on its own a series of conversations with other groups, except Bildu, to raise support for its proposal, which has no prospect of going forward if it is voted.

The popular still see the Executive's rectification insufficient.

Ciudadanos has made it clear these days that it accepts that the state of alarm lasts six months as long as Pedro Sánchez appears periodically in Congress.

They do not define a specific term for this rendering of accounts and they have been open to negotiating it.