Pedro Sánchez (born in Madrid 49 years ago) arrives at this interview in La Moncloa with his head in the price of electricity. In his answers, it is noted that he has been concentrating on this for several days, memorizing data and discussing alternatives to solve it. It is right now the great black hole for the Government, and the urgency to make explicit and repeat a commitment is perceived: that, despite the lack of control of the wholesale market, by the end of the year citizens will have paid on average the same as in 2018 on their bill thanks to the intervention of the Executive. After a radical change of government, Sánchez is confident of a "fair recovery" to turn the polls around and reconnect with the progressive electorate in the next two years.
Question.
These days the Government has given the impression of helplessness in the face of the rise in the price of electricity.
Do you really have no margin to control this rise?
Answer.
The Government takes charge of social concern.
And we are working with a plan to reach a concrete commitment, and that is that at the end of 2021 the Spaniards look back and see that they have paid a similar amount in the electricity bill and similar to the one they paid in 2018. That is It is the objective and the commitment: that all citizens with an average consumption at the end of 2021 pay a similar amount and similar to what they paid in 2018, logically with the discounted CPI.
Q.
And how are they going to do it?
With what instruments?
R.
It is important to clarify the debate that one thing is the evolution of the wholesale price of the energy market and another thing is the electricity bill. The receipt is paid monthly. What does not make sense is to raise the debate on a daily basis, because we do not pay for electricity daily. What the Government can do is cushion the evolution of this wholesale price. First, with structural reforms, with a firm commitment to renewable energy, not only because of climate change issues, but because it is cheaper. The electricity future markets are already saying that Spain, in 2022 and 2023, thanks to renewables, will have lower prices than France and Germany. In addition, we have lowered the VAT from 21% to 10%. This is benefiting 28 million consumers, 2.8 million businesses.It involves an effort to reduce state revenue of 1,400 million euros. That dampens the evolution of the electricity bill by 12%. Third, the protection of the most vulnerable consumers with the social shield, the prohibition against cutting off the electricity to those who cannot pay or with the energy voucher. We are protecting 1,100,000 consumers. Furthermore, we are planning to define a minimum vital consumption precisely in the field of electricity and energy. And, finally, the Government has taken measures in this fourth axis to review the overprofits that electricity companies have. We have deducted 650 million euros that were going to go to the electricity bill to dump them on consumers. We are going to take measures to guarantee that objective: that the Spanish, when they see what they have paid in 2021 from the electricity bill,Check that it is the same or similar to the figure they paid in 2018, with discounted CPI.
P.
The State takes the protection of the vulnerable on its shoulders, but does not intervene in the market.
They have not made the reform of the electricity market after three years of government.
R.
We have approved a fund for the sustainability of the electricity system, which is currently being processed in the Courts.
We are going to extract from the electricity bill a series of costs that citizens are paying today and that tomorrow, once it is validated in Congress, the companies that generate that energy, nuclear, gas, will pay.
The Government has done and will continue to do everything possible.
With the recovery plan we are going to allocate 1,200 million euros to self-consumption.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, during a moment of the interview.
In the video, Sánchez tells of his plans to cushion the increases in the price of electricity on the bill.PHOTO: CARLOS ROSILLO
On the energy market: "We have withdrawn 650 million euros that were going to go to the electricity bill to dump them on consumers"
Q.
You are talking to us about what you have done so far, about things that are in Congress for the next few months.
But many people, especially their partners from United We Can, urge to do something now because there are forecasts that prices will continue to rise until March 2022. Do you have something in your portfolio right now?
R.
United We can propose the constitution of a public company.
It is an old debate, but when we agreed on our coalition program we discussed it and it was left out.
It is not part of the coalition agreement.
Therefore, the Government does not feel concerned by this proposal.
But in Congress a parliamentary commission will be set up precisely to see what proposals the actors and political groups make.
We will listen.
But the important thing is the Government's commitment that, of course, we are going to maintain the electricity bill in terms similar to those of 2018.
P.
Why can not be done in Spain the same as in France, for example, set the price of nuclear energy?
R.
The energy mix is different in one country and another.
We are making an unequivocal commitment to renewable energy.
Also, not many people know it, but Spain is the country with the largest source of solar energy in Europe and one of the most important in wind energy.
90% of the wind farms in our country are made with national manufacture;
60% of the solar parks are made with national manufacture.
P.
Can this crisis break the Government?
A.
We are committed to a coalition program that we form.
Before the end of the legislature we have already fulfilled 34% of the commitments of that coalition government, we are going to reach 38% in this semester.
This is a government that is advancing.
In 2008, it took 12 years to regain pre-crisis employment levels.
We have a shared goal, and that is for Spain, in 2023, to be a better country than the one we found ourselves in 2018, a more advanced, more prosperous country and, ultimately, to emerge from the greatest calamity of the last 100 years.
Today we are at employment levels more or less similar to those of before the covid, and it has taken a year and a half.
Pedro Sánchez in the gardens of La Moncloa, on Friday.
On video, a moment of the interview.PHOTO: CARLOS ROSILLO
On creating a public energy company: “It is not part of the coalition agreement.
We discussed it and it was left out "
Q.
Are you considering ending the legislature without United We Can?
R.
My commitment is to continue with the coalition government until the last day. We are two parties with two different political cultures, although we share the progressive space. The PSOE is a party that reflects the feelings of the street, but has a very consolidated culture of government. United We Can, in its genesis, was a movement of social activists who gave way to institutional politics. To govern is to reconcile the desirable with the maximum that we can achieve. We are achieving very important things, raising the minimum wage, passing a euthanasia law, reversing cuts that were made in the past, for example, in dependency or in education. They are assimilating that transition between social activism and institutional politics. But from the point of view of loyalty,In important voting, United Podemos has always been on the side of the Government. That the decibels could be a little lower? Of course.
Q.
We already have 70% of the population vaccinated, but the pandemic is still there. When will we return to pre-pandemic normality? Or are we never going to get that life back?
A.
We have given an example to both Europe and the world of how things can be done well.
We are getting closer to regaining our normality.
There are several lessons to be learned from this 70%.
First, it would not have been possible if we had not had some formidable healthcare professionals.
Second, that this vaccination process has not depended on the current account or the size of the pocket of each of the taxpayers.
And, thirdly, we have had an example of the best patriotism of the Spaniards who trust their national health system and science and who, therefore, do not give credence to the hoaxes or superstitions that we have seen in the form of hoaxes.
P.
Does it make sense to put a third dose in rich countries when poor countries are just starting the first?
A.
It is not incompatible.
Spain has already donated more than six million doses to Latin American countries;
our commitment is to reach 7.5 million donated doses before the end of the year.
Europe is, as a whole, the continent that is donating the most doses to the rest of the planet.
But in relation to the third dose we have to wait for the scientific evidence.
United We Can is assimilating the transition between social activism and being a government.
In voting there is loyalty
Q.
Can a country be changed with 72,000 million euros?
R.
You can do many things, because they are not 72,000 million euros.
It is, above all, to leverage private investment from that public investment.
We must make a recovery as fair as possible, that large numbers are transferred to the day-to-day lives of people, even the most humble, in the form of more jobs, better salaries.
That is why the debate now about the minimum wage.
And also with more dignified pensions.
The agreement that we have just reached with the unions and employers is the first on pensions since 2011. It has taken us 10 years to rebuild an agreement that was broken in 2013 under the Rajoy administration.
Q.
What guarantees are there that the amount of money that is going to reach Spain from European funds will not be captured only by large companies?
R.
We have already executed more than 16%, and many of the projects are linked to more local development;
therefore, they are SMEs.
Above all, these funds will be managed by SMEs, by the social economy, by the self-employed.
But it is also true that there are certain projects that are tractors for the modernization of sectors such as the automotive industry that need the support not only of SMEs, but also of large companies.
Q.
And this great change of country with 72,000 million euros, can it be done with this Parliament, with a president that has only 120 seats?
R.
The new politics in which we are is precisely being able to articulate and structure the difference.
We have 155 seats with United We Can, but in these 18 months of the legislature, practically all the bills, royal decree laws, have been validated in Congress.
We have to make the digital revolution and the ecological revolution as inclusive as possible, from a territorial, generational and gender point of view.
May these two revolutions be seen by the working middle class as opportunities for advancement and job creation for them.
Q.
There is no memory of a government reshuffle like the one you did this summer.
Now he takes over from Adriana Lastra as spokesperson in Congress.
Does it change almost everything because almost nothing worked?
R.
It is that there are months that are worth years. We have experienced a terrible pandemic. We have had two, three Councils of Ministers a week, with very tough decisions. That has a personal cost as well. Politics is made by people who have to give up their family life to defend what they most want, which is their country. I am very grateful for what all the ministers and ministers have done. Many of them have accompanied me even before I became president. It is also important that in this new stage of economic recovery the equipment is renewed, that new blood enters. The PSOE has a lot of quarry, and the best quarry it has is the municipalist, and it is precisely where I have gone to make that recovery. At the parliamentary level, Adriana Lastra has done an extraordinary job. As of the federal congress in October,As deputy secretary general, she will have a 100% dedication to the party because we have municipal and regional elections in 2023, and then the general elections at the end of 2023.
Q.
Do you think that some courts of justice are making political opposition to the Government?
R.
If you ask me about the renewal block ...
Q.
I ask you about the court rulings that amend the plan for some political decisions.
R. I
respect the decisions that are taken, although I have not shared the ruling of the Constitutional Court.
And, of course, I feel more identified with the private vote even of the president himself on the state of alarm.
Q.
Have you resigned yourself to ending the legislature with the democratic anomaly represented by having a General Council of the Judiciary with the mandate expired almost three years ago, the Court of Accounts unrenewed, the Constitutional one as well?
R.
I have never resigned.
We have tried up to four times to reach an agreement with the PP.
The PP has been out of the Constitution for a thousand days.
Why are you holding the government of the judges hostage?
The PP has not accepted the electoral result of 2019. Not only its defeat, but the parliamentary composition of the Cortes.
This behavior must be called with all the letters: it is undemocratic.
But there is a second reason that also seems very serious to me.
The PP patrimonializes everything: Spain, the flag, the Constitution must be read as I want ... There is a clear hijacking of the Spanish Constitution.
That Vox does it is worrying, but that the PP does it is alarming.
Pedro Sánchez, during the interview.
In video, the president criticizes the PP for blocking the Judiciary.PHOTO: CARLOS ROSILLO
On the renewal of organs and institutions: "If the PP blocks it, what it is doing is not recognizing the electoral result of 2019"
P.
Could the members of the CGPJ unblock the situation by resigning?
R.
I cannot enter into that debate, because we are talking about a power other than the Executive.
The PP has given many pretexts during these thousand days, today is the election system, yesterday it was that Podemos is in the Government, the day before yesterday they did not want a judge to be there who issued a sentence in one of the PP corruption cases.
In short, pretexts.
I hear the PP say "the interventionism of the Government with respect to the judges", but is there greater interventionism than to block and hijack the renewal of the government of the judges?
Q.
Has the Government ever put the reform of the system of election of judges on the negotiating table, even if it is in the future?
R.
That debate can be substantiated, but it is not more than a pretext.
If you want to change the law, the first thing you have to do is win the election.
Second, it must have a parliamentary majority, which today does not exist in Congress, to modify that election system, which, incidentally, has been going on for 30 years.
Q.
Would you be willing to offer it to unlock?
R.
That is not the debate.
It is much deeper and more serious.
It is about democracy.
The Constitution, that I know, maybe I'm wrong, it does not say in its articles that it must be fulfilled when the PP wins and, when it does not win, then it must not be fulfilled.
The Constitution tells us that every five years we have to renew the governing body of the judges.
The Constitution, as far as I know, does not say that it must be complied with only when the PP wins.
He says that you have to renew organs
P.
The prosecutor of the Supreme is investigating the emeritus king for charging allegedly illegal commissions.
Should you go back to Spain and give an explanation?
R.
Regarding King Juan Carlos, I think I have clearly positioned myself in previous statements.
For the peace of mind of the citizens, the rule of law works, the Tax Agency is working, the Prosecutor's Office is working as well, the media echo the progress.
Therefore, the most important thing is that it is known that any conduct, any investigation that is likely to be opened in this area will not have any restraint.
It also seems important to me to reaffirm that my commitment is total to the Constitution and to the Parliamentary Monarchy.
Here an institution is not being judged;
you can be judging a person from the public debate.
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P.
But it hurts the institution ...
A.
This debate does not contribute.
But I also tell you with the same forcefulness with which I have expressed myself in relation to King Juan Carlos, that I acknowledge the efforts and progress that are being made by the current Head of State and the Royal House in transparency and exemplarity.
Q.
Can the institution and the person be separated in a hereditary institution?
What image do you give of Spain?
A.
That does not contribute to the good reputation of our country.
To say otherwise would be false.
It is also true that, just as we have seen cases that we have liked more or less in other bodies, whether in politics, in the media, in other institutions, we are not stigmatizing the profession or the institution.
Q.
Does King Juan Carlos owe the Spanish an explanation?
R.
First we will see how everything develops.
It is important, at least as Prime Minister, that the presumption of innocence is maintained.
Depending on what we are seeing, your question may or may not be answered much more clearly.
[The King Emeritus scandal] does not contribute to the good reputation of our country.
There will be no brake on the investigation
Q. You
plan to present Budgets this year.
We recover a certain institutional normality.
Can you guarantee that this will be the case until the end of the term?
R.
That stability of having four-year legislatures is my commitment.
It was said that we were not going to reach 70% of vaccinated in the month of August.
That we were not going to be able to approve the first Budgets, and we are going to go for the second ones.
I appeal to all parliamentary forces.
The State has to emerge stronger from this onslaught, we have to strengthen our health, our education and our science and research system.
P.
But taxes do not touch them at the moment ...
R.
I think we have to come out with a much more strengthened welfare state, without a doubt.
The first thing to do to achieve this is for the economy to grow.
And, from there, the Government has set up a commission of experts for a tax reform that needs to be done;
we are committed to developing it over the next six years.
We are going to work with that horizon.
P.
Esquerra talks about an independence referendum in 2030. Do you see any future for the dialogue table starting from a base like this?
R.
Catalonia needs a Government that comes out of the self-absorption in which it has been in these last 15 years, talking about issues that, perhaps for them, legitimately, are very important, but that today, after the pandemic and the consequences social, economic and health have probably been reduced.
Q.
But at the dialogue table that is meeting now, they are going to hold that referendum for 2030. What will you take?
R.
What I am going to bring is something public, which is the reunion agenda, where there is a set of financing investments, which is in the interest of Catalonia and the country as a whole to take advantage of this stage of recovery and modernization.
Spain has no problem with Catalonia;
who has a problem is the independence movement itself with the plural conception of Catalan society.
Catalonia needs a Government that comes out of the self-absorption in which it has been in the last 15 years
Q.
Will you preside over the appointment?
R.
I have always stated that my disposition for dialogue is total.
I have met with the president of the Generalitat [Quim] Torra, with the president [Pere] Aragonés, I met in this room with the delegation of the Government of the Generalitat at that time.
The most important thing is not whether I go or not;
The important thing is if there is progress at that table, and that is something we all have to strive for.
Q.
Are you satisfied with how the minors from Ceuta have been returned to Morocco?
A.
In May 9,000 people entered Ceuta in two days. The territorial integrity of our country was called into question. Fortunately, that is past. We have an extraordinary opportunity to redefine our relationship with Morocco, which is a strategic partner. Therefore, it is a problem that we have to solve, with the maximum guarantees towards the minors who entered, but also being aware that we have a balance of coexistence in Ceuta that is always delicate, which was broken by the massive entry of Moroccans. I can only have words of gratitude to Ceuta, to its Government and also to Morocco because in this new stage that we have opened we believe that we will be able to provide a solution with their maximum collaboration.
Pedro Sánchez, in front of the Moncloa palace.
In video, Sánchez talks about Spain's relationship with Morocco.PHOTO: CARLOS ROSILLO
On the return of minors from Ceuta to Morocco: "We have to resolve it with the maximum guarantees towards the minors who entered, but also being aware that we have a balance of coexistence in Ceuta that is always delicate"
Q.
What or who have failed in Afghanistan for the Taliban to rule again 20 years later?
R.
It is a failure of the international community. There is no need to put any hot cloth on it. But both in Afghanistan and with 70% of vaccination, Spain has exercised the best of patriotisms. The president of the European Commission said that Spain represents the soul of Europe. We are at the hard times and the mature ones. Our country is a formidable country, which has very high values. The other day I was reading a poll [by Yougov, a British pollster, carried out in eight countries] that said that 91% of Spaniards stated that they would see as normal if any of their relatives came out of the closet and recognized their homosexuality. In the US it is 66%. In France 57%. Our country embraces the conquests in rights and freedoms. With Afghanistan and vaccination we have taught ourselves and the world a lesson.The opposition says: "What do you have to celebrate about Afghanistan?" As a collective success, we have saved the lives of 2,000 people. They are few, probably, but it will be necessary to ask each one of them if this exercise has not been worth it.
Afghanistan?
A failure of the international community.
But both there and in vaccination, Spain taught a lesson
Q.
How do you imagine post-Merkel Europe?
The SPD ranks high in the polls.
R.
I know a lot about the candidate, Olaf Scholz, and I participated in the election campaign in July with him in Berlin.
If there is that change in Germany, both Spain and Germany can be two engines of a new conception of progressivism that I think will suit Europe very well.
Q.
What has this hard year and a half taught you?
R.
Humility, is the great lesson for politics and for the West: we are not safe, we are not immune.
And also being aware that, beyond the noise, this is a great country that, when that unity is called upon, can succeed.
Now we have the most extraordinary conditions to carry out a new modernization of the country like the one that was done in the Transitional era.
This moment for Spain is one of a crossroads: if we want to move forward or we want to stay in the tail wagon of this entire process of change and revolution that the world is experiencing.
Video of the interview
PHOTO: CARLOS ROSILLO
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Credits
Coordination: Brenda Valverde
Art and design direction: Fernando Hernández
Layout: Nelly Natalí
- Vídeo: Carlos Martínez, Álvaro Rodríguez de la Rua, Luis Almodovar y Saúl Ruiz