Lone Belarra finished her speech, got off the lectern, walked out of the chamber and the only member of the Government who occupied the blue bench, the Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, ran after her.
The intervention of the general secretary of Podemos sounded like the announcement of bad news for the Executive, whose fiscal package, put to a vote this Thursday in Congress, was hanging by a thread. Belarra had begun by describing the process of drafting the reform as “absolutely grotesque”, went on to accuse the PSOE of privileging Junts and PNV over left-wing groups and ended with a warning: “If they want Podemos votes, put the tax to the energy ones.” More information
Not even five minutes had passed when a statement from Belarra’s party announced its vote in favor of the fiscal package after the socialists committed to creating a negotiating table on that tax on energy companies, whose extension had been ruled out after an agreement with Junts. to which the PNV joined. Once again it was proven that in this Congress that lives as if in a devilish script series, almost nothing is what it seems.
“Here everything can change in 24 hours, for better or worse,” ERC representative Pilar Valluguera later commented. And in much less, just a few minutes. In this Congress only suitable for tightrope walkers, it is possible that some groups will conscientiously shake themselves up dialectically and then vote all together. This is what happened this Thursday with the Government’s partners, who ended up supporting the fiscal package after putting grievances and differences on the table.
The bill, initially proposed to transpose a European directive that establishes a minimum tax of 15% on multinationals and to which the Government later tried to attach a broader tax reform, already caused an unusual spectacle in the Finance Commission last Monday. of Congress, suspended until after midnight while the Executive desperately sought an agreement on the text that was to be submitted to the plenary session this Thursday. And until the last minute the uncertainty remained, revealing a situation that the PP deputy Pedro Puy summed up caustically:
“We are seeing the spectacle of the blanket. Junts is covered, Sumar is uncovered; Sumar is covered, Esquerra is uncovered; Esquerra is covered, Podemos is uncovered. And the PNV, of course, is always covered.” A representative of the latter party, Idoia Sagastizabal, had previously defined it with another, less caustic image: the “squaring of the circle” that involves reconciling positions that are difficult to reconcile between the groups that support the Government, especially on economic issues such as this one. taxes.
In this Congress subscribed to strange phenomena, the debate on the fiscal package was more about what it does not contain – taxing large energy companies – than about its real content. The discussion was peppered with reproaches. The rivalry between the two Basque sovereigntist groups has always taken place in Versailles-style ways, unlike the bitter dispute between the Catalan independentists. But in recent months it has become more visible.
And although Oskar Matute, the economic spokesperson for EH Bildu, did not mention the PNV at any time, the allusions sounded very evident: “We do not feel challenged by Josu Jon Imaz (former president of the PNV and current CEO of Repsol). EH Bildu’s politics are made by its militants (…) There are those who are in politics to defend interests.”
Sagastizabal did not engage in direct confrontation nor did he go beyond the diplomatic line. But he emphasized that the final content of the law is the result of “parliamentary arithmetic” and called on the groups to be “responsible” and “abandon maximalist positions.”
Like Matute, the rest of the sovereigntist left boasted of not giving in to pressure from big companies. Néstor Rego, from the BNG, and Vallugera did it. In the case of the ERC deputy, it was also clear that she was marking distances with Junts when she declared: “We only represent the people, not a board of directors or the energy companies, anything other than ourselves. “We have no debt to anyone.”
Junts was still missing and things got more abrupt there. Nor was it necessary for his deputy Josep Maria Cruset to expressly cite ERC because it was very clear. Cruset attacked those who understand politics “as a dance floor on which they walk in a cocky and arrogant tone.” And then he launched Junts’ favorite reproach to Esquerra: that in the previous legislature he supported the Government “in exchange for nothing.” Gabriel Rufián, the ERC spokesperson, shifted on the bench, shaking his head and smiling sarcastically.
In this climate, the Government parties made an effort not to further heat up the atmosphere. Sumar’s economic spokesman, Carlos Martín, made a strong defense of taxes and refuted that Spain is a “fiscal hell”, as the right denounces, but rather a “low-tax territory.” Without moving from her seat, the vice president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, briefly asked to speak to thank the allies. And nothing more, lest any comment change everything again in a minute.
Anger over Aldama
But the real fight came at the end of the plenary session, once the accusations before the judge by businessman Víctor de Aldama against Pedro Sánchez and other PSOE leaders were already known. One of them, the secretary of organization of the party, Santos Cerdán, intervened in the last point on the agenda, on the transfer of traffic to Navarra, his community of origin. During Cerdán’s intervention, shouts threatening Aldama began to be heard from the PP bench.
Before concluding, the socialist leader deplored that “a confessed criminal sets the political agenda” and, addressing the popular people, he stated, very energetically: “They are not going to win with slander, lies and false testimonies. Abandon all hope.”
When Cerdán left the speakers’ gallery, uproar broke out in the PP seats with laughter and shouts. The melody of the children of San Ildefonso was even heard imitating when they sing the lottery to the voice of “fifteen thousand euros”, the amount that Aldama claims to have given to the number three of the PSOE. On the opposite bench, the socialists stood up to applaud their partner.
The popular Sergio Sayas then took the stand, leaving aside the agenda, and focused on commenting in detail on the businessman’s judicial statement. After a while, the first vice president, the socialist Alfonso Gómez de Celis, who was directing the session, interrupted it by invoking article 102 of the Regulations, which establishes that “speakers will be called to the issue whenever they are outside of it.”
Sayas stirred: “Democracy is great for you.” And he alleged that he was “putting context” to the transfer of traffic to Navarra with the argument that the PSOE “wants to kick out the Civil Guard” from there because “the Civil Guard bothers criminals.” The deputy continued accepting Aldama’s accusations against Sánchez. The presidency warned him a second time, but Sayas persisted: “This country is still a democracy no matter how much you are trying to make it stop being one.” His time was already running out and the PP said goodbye to him amid applause, laughter and a general air of euphoria.
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