"What a damn debate!"

"You are here, Mr. Sánchez," the opposition groups ironically began the morning.

Six hours later, those of the PP were already protesting loudly because the Prime Minister did not shut up.

The opposition was waiting for Pedro Sánchez in Congress since October 29 gave the scare and left the Minister of Health alone in the defense of the extension until May of the state of alarm.

Since then, the debate in which someone did not point to the empty chair on the blue bench to conclude that the president escaped from Parliament was rare.

The desired moment came this Wednesday, a month and a half later, with an appearance by the head of the Government to take stock of the European summits and the state of alarm.

The opposition had Sánchez to give and take: more than seven hours of debate, including the dessert of a control session, with quick questions from the seat.

Everything was talked about and nothing was advanced, with the usual entrenched positions.

Deputies applaud after the intervention of the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, in Congress.

On video, part of his statements (Photo: Andrea Comas | Video: EPV)

Like other times, it was the easygoing grace of the PNV spokesperson, Aitor Esteban, who summed it up best: "What a damn debate!"

That very Basque dish, Esteban illustrated, is in theory a leek broth, "but in the end everyone ends up adding something from here and something from there."

“Well here”, he continued, “we don't really know what we're talking about.

And we end up managing emotions ”.

Pedro Quevedo, the deputy from Nueva Canarias, made the image his own, adapted to a dish from his land: a stew.

The porrusalda - in which little was said about Europe, not too much about the pandemic and enough about things like totalitarianism or "judicial fascism", all that Esteban diplomatically called "managing emotions" - was simmering slow.

Sánchez had opened the session at 9:00 with a 50-minute speech in which he stuck to the issues in question and took the opportunity to vindicate the "pluralism" of the majority that has brought the Budgets forward.

Then came the shifts of the spokespersons, and that in the current Congress is no small thing: twenty different paraded by the rostrum.

When Sánchez came up to give the replies, it was already after 2 in the afternoon.

But it is seen that the president had had a strong breakfast and, without fainting, he dedicated himself to answering neatly each of the deputies, from Pablo Casado to the last of the Mixed Group.

The popular seats began to get restless: murmurs, huddles ... Some protested loudly because Sánchez could not be heard well.

And the president, Meritxell Batet, also began to lose her patience:

"Ladies and gentlemen, you can't hear because they won't stop talking."

When three in the afternoon approached, the PP deputies found an explanation for the presidential loquacity: he wanted to appear on the news.

And from the last rows of the group, a chorus broke out that would not clash in the stands of a stadium:

"I-I-I-laugh, I-I-I-laugh!"

Batet, usually hieratic, definitely broke out:

"Ladies and gentlemen, do I have to remind you that we are at the seat of the legislative branch?"

One of the things that most irritated the popular was a novel incursion of Sánchez in the genre of parody.

Something similar had already been seen in Congress two weeks ago, when, in the Budget debate, the Vox spokesman, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, made the voice and recreated what would be a typical social communist speech for him: “These are Feminist Budgets, which deploy policies that are the seed of co-governance to advance citizenship in this plurinational State .... ”Sánchez emulated him this Wednesday.

For several times, the president looked at his rivals, put on the best of his sarcastic smiles and parodied the usual litany of the right: "This social-communist, totalitarian, Bolivarian, Judeo-Masonic government, financed by George Soros ...".

The popular ones spent the rest of the session accusing him of acting with "frivolity" in the midst of the pandemic and "with 75,000 deaths that the Government does not recognize."

Santiago Abascal, the leader of Vox - reappeared after the long absence that followed his failed motion of censure in October - also affected Sánchez's behavior.

Abascal found it "unseemly for a president," especially since he had done the imitations "with his hand in his pocket."

Gabriel Rufián, from ERC, chose this moment as the “scene of the day”: “Mr. Abascal with his hand in his pocket, reproaching the president for speaking with his hand in his pocket”.

The president of the PP, Pablo Casado, intervenes during a government control session.

On video, part of his statements (Photo: Europa Press | Video: Atlas)

When sessions go on that long, people seek relief in the hallways.

There, the second vice president, Pablo Iglesias, and the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, had a long conversation in full skirmishes between the members of the Cabinet.

A journalist from Europa Press heard Montero say: "Don't be stubborn."

Casado was not long in entering the rag: "The Government fights in the corridors."

From the day there is also the new name of Abascal to the Government: "Social criminal."

And a contribution from the PP deputy Javier Bas: "In the Interior, Marlaska is the owner, but the one who directs is Otegi."

These two were not parodies.