SPAIN: PEDRO SÁNCHEZ’S GOVERNMENT IN THE CLUTCHES OF THE SEPARATISTS​

January 19, 2024

A new left-wing party rejects the government of President Pedro Sánchez and aims to snatch voters away from him. The Spanish cabinet is trapped by the blackmail of the Catalan separatists.

The political crisis is aggravated by the obstinacy of the Socialist government of Pedro Sanchez to hold on to power at all costs. Not only the leading socialists of the previous generation are agitating against him, but also the youth, for whom the current government is a betrayal of social democracy and a threat to the unity of Spain.

SÁNCHEZ PUSHES THROUGH THE BILL WITH THE VOTES OF THE CATALAN SEPARATISTS

The maneuver that has broken the patience of many Socialists (vis-à-vis the Sanchez cabinet) has been the recent parliamentary vote on a package of laws to enable Spain to obtain money from the European Reconstruction Fund.

After first losing the votes, the Prime Minister pulled the package through by one vote – a desperate roll of the dice, caving in to the demands of Catalan separatists and promising to give that autonomous region authority over immigration policy (representatives of the two nationalist parties, whose dozen or so deputies are the key to the government majority in Parliament, withdrew their opposition at the last minute).

The deputies of the coalition of Socialists and the ultra-left ally Sumar applauded like possessed relief when the bills were passed, but the indignation of the center-right opposition and of much of public opinion – already furious with the President of the Government for promising an amnesty for the Catalan coup plotters – reached its zenith.

The scope of immigration policy -i.e. border control, issuing of permits and visas, among other things- is reserved in the Spanish Constitution to the central government and cannot be ceded to autonomous communities such as Catalonia, the Basque Country or the other 14 which have statutes of autonomy.

CRITICISM OF THE GOVERNMENT

There has been a succession of comments from columnists and prominent politicians to the effect that President Sanchez has become a hostage of the separatists, whom he allows to violate the Constitution and break the unity of the State so that he himself can save a minimal majority in Parliament. Socialist Felipe González, one of the fathers of the democratic transition and Prime Minister between 1982 and 1996, and the eminent writer Javier Cercas, as well as a group of disappointed Socialists who formed a new left-wing party, among others, have not been able to hold their ground.

– It is an unimaginable scandal that the Spanish government is falling victim to the blackmail of the separatists. It is losing legitimacy! – said Gonzalez in a wide-ranging speech at an event commemorating the anniversary of the democratic Constitution. – The foundations of our civic coexistence in the State are under threat”.

And he listed examples of the Catalan separatists’ attacks on King Felipe VI for defending the Constitution and the unity of the State, and on the judges who convicted them a few years ago for attempting a coup d’état, i.e., wanting to separate Catalonia from Spain.

– It is impossible to count the nonsense and stupidities uttered by these blackmailers against the King and the attacks on our Constitution”, declared Felipe González.

And he recalled that the ceding of the immigration policy is another unconstitutional concession of the President of the Government to the separatists, after the promise of amnesty for murderers in 2017. It allowed Sánchez’s cabinet to secure a minimal majority and stay in power after the July elections resulted in a victory for the opposition center-right Popular Party, which, however, failed to form a majority coalition.

– This is not an amnesty, but a self-amnesty granted by the convicted criminals themselves,” Gonzalez declared.

“The Constitution is being insidiously undermined by the successive capitulations of our government. We must get our hands on its reform to oppose the chimeras of the nationalists,” wrote Juan Luis Cebrián, for many years editor-in-chief of the daily El País.

“We are facing cynical, irresponsible politicians, poisoned by the miasmas of power, who do not unite us but divide us, who consider fraud a legitimate tool of politics and who consider ethical demands childish. We are at the bottom”, wrote in the same magazine the eminent writer Javier Cercas (author, among others, of Soldados de Salamina). Although until then he had criticized the Catalan nationalists and President Sanchez’s alliance with them, he continued to vote Socialist (with gritted teeth), but now he declared: “I am going underground, I am going to cast a null vote and call for rebellion!

PEDRO SANCHEZ WANTS TO STAY IN POWER AT ALL COSTS

However, the increasingly strong criticism and indignation of the opposition, socialists, columnists or intellectuals, who chorus to denounce the audacity and lack of scruples of a President of the Government who has crossed all limits not long ago, are not impressed.

– ‘All’s well that ends well’, commented Sanchez on the ceding of Catalonia’s immigration policy in exchange for votes in Parliament.

The President of the Government considers that staying in power is his only goal, and his loyal supporters in Parliament and the media denounce any criticism as ‘regression to fascist positions’.

SPAIN HAS A NEW PARTY; THE SPANISH LEFT IS FED UP WITH WHAT PEDRO SANCHEZ IS DOING

In the meantime, however, critics of the Government have already moved from words to deeds. A group of young socialists have just formed a new party called Izquierda Española.

– The main reason for the formation of the group is the betrayal of the ideals of social democracy perpetrated by the Socialist Party, announced its leader Guillermo del Valle.

The Spanish Left is outraged by the stubborn pact of the Socialists (one of the two main parties that have governed the country since the restoration of democracy) with the “peripheral nationalists” – Catalans and Basques – who “want to destroy Spain by wresting the autonomous communities from it”.  

– There is ample room for a new left that continues to believe in the equality of all citizens before the law and for Spain to be a community of equal, free and fraternal citizens, says del Valle.

The Spanish left aims to win converts among the disillusioned voters of the socialists, the post-communists and, until recently, the many liberals of Ciudadanos.

According to opinion polls, more than 20% of Socialist voters, some two million citizens, do not agree with the policy of alliance with the separatists and are willing to vote for another left-wing party.

The test for the Spanish left will be the elections to the European Parliament on June 9.

—-

Maciej Stasiński, Polish journalist, is the Head of the International section of the daily Gazeta Wyborcza. He is an associate of EditoRed.

This article was originally published in the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, with whose permission it is reproduced here.

In this linkyou can review the original text in Polish.