The week was going to be round for the PSOE.
La Moncloa and Ferraz had everything thought out to the millimeter.
The Government comfortably passed the amendments to the entire Budget in Congress on Thursday and Friday was reserved for the staging of the agreement with the PP to rescue the Judiciary from the blockade in which it has been for almost four years.
The climax was this morning's act for the 40th anniversary of the socialist victory in the 1982 general elections, which brought together 4,000 people in Seville in the midst of an enthusiastic atmosphere that had nothing to do with the apathy in the Andalusian elections.
But Alberto Núñez Feijóo's boycott of the renewal of the governing body of the judges, when the agreement was already taken for granted, prevented the week from being perfect.
Philip Gonzalez,
to whom the right usually resorts if the slightest sign of discomfort or discrepancy with Pedro Sánchez is interpreted from his words, he was the speaker of the PSOE's indignation over the institutional crisis: "If someone does not like a law, they have the right to change it, What you have no right to do is break it."
"It's easy to understand.
First you fulfill it and then you propose that it be changed.
But first I don't skip it or condition it to I don't know what else.
That does not serve to stabilize democracy or improve coexistence, ”said the former president in a day in which the federal leadership and almost all the PSOE ministers turned, although there was a felt absence: that of Alfonso Guerra.
"If someone does not like a law, they have the right to change it, what they do not have the right to do is break it."
"It's easy to understand.
First you fulfill it and then you propose that it be changed.
But first I don't skip it or condition it to I don't know what else.
That does not serve to stabilize democracy or improve coexistence, ”said the former president in a day in which the federal leadership and almost all the PSOE ministers turned, although there was a felt absence: that of Alfonso Guerra.
"If someone does not like a law, they have the right to change it, what they do not have the right to do is break it."
"It's easy to understand.
First you fulfill it and then you propose that it be changed.
But first I don't skip it or condition it to I don't know what else.
That does not serve to stabilize democracy or improve coexistence, ”said the former president in a day in which the federal leadership and almost all the PSOE ministers turned, although there was a felt absence: that of Alfonso Guerra.
“The Constitution must be fulfilled from beginning to end, from the first to the last of its articles, every day of the year, whether you are in the Government or in the opposition,” Sánchez reproached the other party that has governed Spain since the restoration of the democracy.
“As Felipe said, that the political parties break [the law] shamelessly... Failure to comply with the Constitution is the defeat of moderation and the triumph of extremism, because it deteriorates our democracy and coexistence,” he added. President of the goverment.
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González pays tribute to Alfonso Guerra, the great absentee from the PSOE celebration in Seville
Sánchez vindicated the PSOE, as opposed to the PP, as a "party free from any pressure group, no matter how powerful it may be."
“To those powers that, as we have seen in recent days, have trapped other political parties, we say that the PSOE is an autonomous project that will always defend and only serve the social majority in Spain.
Never to a minority of privileged ”, he riveted.
The PSOE considers an excuse from the PP, to end up breaking the pact to renew the General Council of the Judiciary in the face of internal pressure from the hardest conservative sectors led by Isabel Díaz Ayuso and the media right, the Government's commitment to reduce penalties for sedition.
“We are always governed by the laws and strictly observe the Constitution.
If the interest of the State is at stake, we close ranks with the Constitution.
The failure of the negotiations to renew one of the country's key institutions blurred, but did not monopolize, the party for the 40th anniversary of the victory of October 28, 1982 and the legacy of all socialist governments.
The PSOE really wanted to celebrate and take a break after a legislature in which Sánchez had to manage the pandemic and now the economic and social consequences of the invasion of Ukraine.
The event could not have come at a better time.
“Who does not know where he comes from, does not know where he is going.
You have to understand where we come from, so that we continue building the future”, González recommended to the younger generations before reviewing some of the great milestones of his Executive, such as free public healthcare.
“The national health system was made by Ernest Lluch.
It took three and a half years to bring it to Parliament, we wanted it to be of such a nature that it could not be reversed”, he recalled the minister assassinated by ETA.
Regarding universal education up to the age of 16, the former president ironically stated that Spain "was only a century and a half behind France with that law."
González also highlighted the modernization and democratization of the Army, which came from several frustrated coup attempts: “At 80 years old, I can say that we have Armed Forces whose prestige inside and outside of Spain we can feel proud of.”
The state model with the transfer of powers to the communities is also among his medals: "We created the autonomous state, decentralizing Spain has been very good for its development."
"Centrifugal power to fight each other does not suit him so well," he warned.
“The legacy of the 1982 victory lives on in those of us who could not vote because of our age or were unborn.
We are the seed of the tree of freedom planted with blood, sweat and tears by the generation before Felipe,” Sánchez seconded.
Recognition of that first PSOE government also came from Olaf Scholz, one of the main figures of social democracy.
“Dear Felipe, I am going to confide in you a secret: since my days in the socialist youth you have been one of the men who has most impressed me with your unconditional fight for freedom.
For many of my compatriots you will always be the face of the young Spanish democracy”, the German chancellor dedicated to him in Spanish in a video recorded message.
“We are the party of rights, which has always followed the general interest.
The opening to the world, entry into Europe, the consolidation of democracy.
We must thank Felipe González and the colleagues who made it possible.
My appreciation to Felipe and support for Pedro Sánchez”, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was not lacking, also in a video message,
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Photo gallery: 40th anniversary of the victory of the PSOE in 1982
Appreciation and signs of affection also came from other current leaders of the PSOE in its different strata.
“When the victory took place I was a university student, the first in the family, we spent the whole night dancing.
I think that there has never been a slogan in Spanish democracy so successful to synthesize the expectations, the desire for change that the party had:
For change
, ”said the mayor of Seville, Antonio Muñoz.
“It was an enthusiasm that went beyond the people who had voted for us.
There was enthusiasm because we were coming out of a black era.
Thank you very much, Felipe, for that immeasurable victory”, appreciated Cristina Narbona, president of the party.
"The PSOE of 1982 and this PSOE of 2022 have all the common elements that make up the values of the party: the commitment to Spain and the constitutional commitment," intervened Juan Espadas, general secretary of the Andalusian PSOE.
"I was in high school, I experienced it with a lot of emotion, it was joy, the feeling that something good was coming and an invitation to all of society to participate in the change," recalled the Minister of Finance and Socialist Deputy Secretary General, María Jesús Montero, whom González encouraged to apply a profound tax reform: "We must make a fair effort, asking for more from those who have more and fewer sacrifices from those who have less."
“We recognize ourselves in the work of Felipe, as you were of those socialists of the Second Republic and of our founder.
Our heritage is shared by many generations.
For the PSOE of yesterday, for the PSOE of today and for the PSOE of tomorrow.
Thank you Felipe”, Sánchez summed up the feeling of a day watered down by the PP's retreat in the renewal of the Judiciary.
Sánchez and González, this Saturday in Seville.Alejandro Ruesga