With the year just beginning, the government is living these first days of January immersed in a frenetic negotiation process until next Wednesday. During that day, Congress will debate both the two amendments to the entire amnesty law of PP and Vox and the three decrees approved by the Executive in December. Junts announced on Friday that it will vote against the texts, on which both the continuity of anti-crisis measures and the receipt of 10,000 million euros of European funds depend. From La Moncloa they do not want to leave any vine unlaunched and will put pressure on the Popular Party, whose autonomous communities would be directly affected if Brussels cuts the tap, in addition to squeezing Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party with the economic consequences that it would imply for citizens to bring down the social shield, according to government sources. At the same time, contacts will be maintained until the last moment with Junts, but the Executive flatly refuses to give in to one of its conditions: to change the decrees for new texts. Nor is the yes of other parties such as Podemos or PNV guaranteed. The tension, they anticipate, could last until just before the plenary.

The high-voltage session will begin Wednesday at 2024 a.m. in the Senate, as Congress is under construction. On that day, the Lower House will discuss in an extraordinary plenary session both the amendments to the entire amnesty law, with the frontal opposition of the right-wing forces, and the ratification of three decrees: the one that extends a large part of the anti-crisis package to <>, the omnibus decree that includes other measures related to the receipt of European funds – such as the digitalisation of Justice – and a third on conciliation measures of the Ministry of Labour. Everyone is upset by Junts' refusal. And the government fears that they will keep their finger on the pulse.

Carles Puigdemont's party maintains that the text that affects Justice "endangers" the application of the measure of pardon to those accused of the procés. European case-law contradicts this argument and shows that in practice nothing would change. Junts rejects the other two texts because it believes that part of the content of the parliamentary initiatives invades the competences of the Generalitat and aggravates its "underfunding", according to sources in the Catalan party.

The secretary of organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, and the secretary general of the pro-independence formation, Jordi Turull, held an unsuccessful meeting on Thursday. At the moment, the positions are totally opposed as Junts rejects the three decrees and the government refuses to replace them with new texts. Contacts will be maintained until the end with the Catalans but, in the meantime, the government is focusing on the PP, which will be pressured during these days to achieve the favorable vote of the PP to the three parliamentary initiatives, provisionally in force until they are ratified.

Feijóo said this Friday in an interview with the digital newspaper El Debate that he is "willing" to agree on the validation of the decree on anti-crisis measures if the government adds three amendments. The leader of the opposition demands as conditions: to apply a reduction in personal income tax to incomes of less than 40,000 euros, to include meat, fish and canned food in the VAT reduction on food and to maintain the VAT reduction on gas and electricity at the same rate as last year – of 5% instead of 10%.

The problem for the Popular Party is that several factors are mixed in their decision to support or not the decrees. On the one hand, on his shoulders weighs the loss of funding that would imply the non-validation of the omnibus decree for the regional presidents of the PP. On the approval of this text, it depended that Spain could collect the fourth batch of the Next Generation funds worth 10,000 million euros. A huge source of income that reverts to the communities, of which 11 are governed by the PP.

On the other hand, if the Popular Party votes in favour of the decrees, this movement would take place in the midst of a struggle with Vox to stage who gives more against Sánchez in the run-up to the new electoral cycle. A struggle that was fueled on Wednesday with the registration of their respective amendments to the amnesty law. The PP proposes in its alternative text the dissolution of parties that promote declarations of independence or illegal referendums, a position previously defended by Santiago Abascal's party and which Feijóo's party had rejected. "What hypocrisy. They are Judas, they say one thing and do the opposite, they are false," said Madrid councillor Javier Ortega-Smith on Thursday.

Battle-hardened defense

The PP is now playing another card to attack the Executive during the debate: the resistance of Junts to vote in favour of the decrees. "Pedro Sánchez's hair ball is going to get very fat in his throat," say sources from the popular leadership. "He has the big battle at the end of the year, and in 2025, which is the Catalans. With a very clear rivalry, Junts and Esquerra, where that is going to lead to a very powerful contradiction because every day they are battling for the same thing: who is the one who has more weight. It is going to be very difficult for him to legislate. When your partners want to weaken you as a government and as a state, it is very difficult for them to reach solid agreements," they add.

During the plenary session, the PP will make a fierce defense of its amendment to the entire amnesty law which, in addition to proposing the dissolution of parties, hits squarely in its explanatory memorandum the content of the norm based on pronouncements from Brussels, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the doctrine of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court that in its opinion support its opposition to the measure of pardon. which they see as mere payment for Sanchez to be invested.

The PP's other adversary, next Wednesday, will be Abascal, whose darts against the PP have intensified. Vox was already quick last Friday to harshly censure that Feijóo is open to validating the anti-crisis measures. "Mr. Feijóo has not found out or does not want to know that the coup d'état that Pedro Sánchez is carrying out kicks him out of legality and prevents any political agreement," the ultra party wrote in X. "Only Vox is clear: infinite distance from this government and its coup partners, terrorists and communists," Added. They also have another element, revealed this week, to confront the Popular Party: the meeting that the spokesman of the PP in the Barcelona City Council, Daniel Sirera, held with two senior officials of Junts in a hotel, in mid-August. Abascal has already used, during the first plenary session on the measure of pardon, half of his speaking time to charge against Feijóo.

The government in the chamber will have to get out of the fierce attacks of the right. The Executive will be able to agitate against the PP a cocktail that mixes the appointment of the PP with Junts in the summer, the criticism of the legal community to the proposal to dissolve parties and the condemnation but with reservations of the PP to the beating of a Sánchez doll on New Year's Eve. The government often counters arguments against amnesty with the defence of social protection and anti-crisis measures, which are just debated during the same session. The point is to arrive with their approval tied. And there are three days of harrowing negotiation ahead.

In a first version of this news it said that the parliamentary spokesman of the PP, Miguel Tellado, had maintained contacts and meetings with the PSOE "these weeks", according to sources in Genoa. This newspaper points out that by these contacts he was not referring to negotiations for the decrees, but to previous situations.

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