“With what we have worked to reach agreements!”. A member of the Government walks the corridors of Congress, late Tuesday afternoon, crying out, incredulous, after listening to the ministers Ione Belarra and Irene Montero, above all, to the deputy Lucía Muñoz, who defended the rejection of United We Can to the PSOE proposal to reform upwards the penalties of the law of only yes is yes. “There is no pass” socialist deputies agree on what they have experienced in the last hours. The cross attacks between socialists and purples confirm the situation of fracture that the coalition Executive is experiencing.
Both sectors of the Government admit that the situation is “tense” and that “this scenario is not what we wanted”, but the coalition is going through the most delicate moment since it was formed in January 2020. Pedro Sánchez has given the order to lower the tone and not contribute to “dialectical escalation”. “We are not going to go to the clash,” state government sources.
A slogan that does not work for the ministers of Podemos. While Yolanda Díaz, Alberto Garzón and Joan Subirats have opted either for silence or for asking for responsibility – «I would ask everyone to be responsible. I think I am. But we all have to be responsible, more than ever, “Díaz lamented and reproached Tuesday – Belarra and Montero maintain the offensive against the PSOE.
– The PSOE, hand in hand with the PP, carried out the first involution in women’s rights in this legislature to return to the Penal Code of La Manada. I hope they rectify. We need consent to be respected. It is incomprehensible that the PSOE did not even want to sit down to seek an agreement (Belarra)
– What is at risk is not the coalition government, it is the rights of women. It is bad news that the PSOE has joined hands with the PP to start the path that returns us to the Penal Code of La Manada. They are missing the conquest of women (Montero).
These stakes irritate within the Government. “They are going to destroy the Government”, is the diagnosis that is made, contrasting the attempts that some parties are now making to calm the waters in the face of the belligerence of the Podemos ministers. In the socialist formation there is an aura of disbelief that they want to send the message and show that the coalition is united and twinned. What happened in recent days has increased the discomfort between partners, filling the patience of many charges.
Not that of Pedro Sánchez. At least, that carries over to today. He remains determined to try to safeguard the coalition. It is the message that he has transferred to his own and has put his ministers to the task. Lower the tone and turn the page.
“We have many months in which to continue developing our government agreement. There are technical discrepancies regarding certain issues, but this is a strong and stable government that is giving this country important years of progress”, was the message launched by María Jesús Montero, Minister of Finance and number two of the PSOE, minutes before Participate in the march on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
«We have drawn 200 laws together. And we have a discrepancy. The balance of the coalition is magnificent. And we will continue, ”a weighty member of the Government explains to this newspaper.
Neither PSOE nor United We can contemplate the rupture. No one wants to bear the cost of it, except three months before municipal and regional elections. The words allude to “continue working together”, but the facts show that something is broken and it remains to be seen if there is a point of return.
On Tuesday Belarra and Montero lived in solitude, without the presence of any other minister, the debate on the reform of the law of only yes is yes. Yesterday, no member of the PSOE applauded the Minister of Equality when she finished a parliamentary face-to-face with the Vox deputy Rocío De Meer. Sánchez, for 8-M, took an informal photo in the government offices that are in Congress with his ministers, but only with those of the PSOE. None of United We Can came out.
In the purple government sector there is discomfort over the attitude of the PSOE. They reproach the fact that they did not want to sit down to negotiate and that after they accepted to reform the law and increase the penalties, they did not budge from a proposal that they describe as “unacceptable.” There is anger and concern not only because of the division within the Government, but because this week the majority “that gives life and sustains” Pedro Sánchez has also broken.
“We believe in the coalition and we have tried to protect it by agreeing to reform the law and trying to reach an agreement,” the sources consulted point out.
In this “tense” environment, Sánchez will undertake a government crisis in the coming days, due to the departures of the mayors Reyes Maroto (Madrid) and Carolina Darias (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria). His intention is to carry out a specific remodeling, relieving only these ministers. In the Government and in the PSOE they argue that only the President of the Government knows what he wants, but more than one reflects out loud: “I do not rule out anything.”
Yes, there is a consensus in the PSOE and in United We Can that Sánchez must make some gesture, if his purpose is to protect the coalition, to “recompose” the fracture to some extent. The unblocking and approval of the Housing Law is raised by some sources consulted as, perhaps, that lifeguard.
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