When everything seemed on track with the amnesty law to definitively begin a legislature that had not quite started, the Catalan elections were brought forward. The opposition, especially the PP, which leads the polls, is convinced that it has finally found a weak point in Pedro Sánchez. Alberto Núñez Feijóo made it very clear on the platform: “You have lost control and you are not going to emerge victorious,” he told the president. Some PP leaders conclude more clearly in the halls of Congress: “This is unstoppable, nothing that is going to happen in the coming months is going to stabilize the majority. The Basque ones because of the PNV-Bildu war, the Catalan ones because of the Junts-ERC battle and the European ones because they will be a dogfight between Sumar and Podemos and the PP will also win them comfortably,” they point out. The opposition has smelled weakness, and believes that its arrival in power is only a matter of time.
But in La Moncloa they have a completely different vision. This time, Sánchez is not only playing resistance, as was seen in his speech in Congress, perhaps the most contentful and in-depth speech he has given about the geostrategy in which he has been working for years and the economic policy he defends. The president, those around him point out, is convinced that, although the polls now show the PP rising and the PSOE falling, Feijóo has an enormous weakness in his project and has no position on almost any of the fundamental issues that dominate the international agenda. especially the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. And that, according to the vision that the president conveyed in the debate, was very evident this Wednesday, when Sánchez tried on several occasions to force Feijóo into a debate on international politics that the PP leader was trying to escape. That is why La Moncloa has now coined the new motto “between mud and nothing”, to try to go hand-to-hand with Feijóo on a point that is a strength of Sánchez and a weakness of the PP leader: the international agenda.
“Stop using foreign policy as a firewall for your internal problems,” complained Feijóo, who again and again made it very clear to him, as did Santiago Abascal, from Vox, that the opposition is not going to let the president carry out the political agenda to international debates such as the recognition of Palestine or to economic ones, where data helps the Government. Feijóo even went so far as to demand that the opposition never ask the Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, in the control sessions, something unprecedented, with the argument that no one knows him, as if the issues he manages were not relevant. The leader of the PP insisted several times that the opposition's priority is not going to change: “amnesty and corruption, we are not going to ignore anything.” Even when he spoke about the victims of the war in Ukraine or Gaza, he immediately took the issue to the victims of ETA to return to talking about the pacts with Bildu.
In La Moncloa they believe that the PP may now be euphoric due to its constant improvement in the polls, but they are convinced that in the long term the fact that it does not have a defined position on such decisive issues as Gaza, Ukraine, the increase in defense spending or the economic debates, will end up weighing on you. Sánchez, his team believes, needs time for the legislature to consolidate and above all to normalize it, so that we can talk again about management, about the great European debates, about the economy, about employment, about the fundamental things that normally They make governments fall or grow. That is why it is so important for the opposition to maintain the idea that the Executive is not going to last, something that they insist on in the PP, and so relevant for Sánchez to try to convince everyone, as he did several times yesterday, that he will to exhaust the legislature and has three years ahead of it that are going to be very long for the PP.
Sánchez was very clear in his speech: he has a powerful international agenda, which this week ends with a European tour, he believes he has managed to place Spain in great international prominence with a position in favor of the recognition of Palestine, which has a lot of social support, and has a vision of the issues that currently dominate the agendas of the foreign ministries, such as the increase in defense spending. There it was clearly seen that he also has an internal problem with this issue, because Sumar rejects it outright. But the most important thing for the leader of the PSOE at this moment, with the intention of making a comeback in the polls and above all facing the European elections, the most difficult elections for the Executive, with more guarantees, is to consolidate the idea that he is a president with a clear political project and positive economic data in the face of an opposition that only has the Koldo case and the amnesty to remove.
For this reason, the Government believes that it is emerging from the debate with an injection of morale and a very clear strategy: to try to get out of the hole that Spanish politics has found itself in in recent months and to return to talking about the economy, international politics, relevant decisions. “In 2023 our country grew five times more than the EU as a whole and will be the one that grows the most in 2024 and 2025 among the five largest economies. And we are also creating more jobs than ever, more than half a million in the last year alone. Some want to hide this reality under the mud. They want to hide the good results of the Government and its absence of a political project under noise, slander and tension. They are using the well-known Trumpist and Bolsonaro techniques, they are trying to weaken our democracy, intoxicate public debate. And I recognize that it is difficult to fight against them, but the citizens have my commitment that we are going to do it,” Sánchez summarized. At La Moncloa they are convinced that time will end up working in their favor. But they also think about it in the PP. In the coming weeks it will be seen who wins the game, whether Sánchez's attempt to return to a more normalized political agenda and consolidate the legislature or the opposition's attempt to live in the permanent feeling of exceptionality and a majority in the air.
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