The PSOE is looking for ways to save its migration agreement with Junts against Podemos.
Barring a last-minute surprise, or a member making a mistake in voting, the Congress plenary session will this afternoon reject the consideration of the bill submitted in March by the PSOE and Junts parties delegating state powers over immigration to the Generalitat.
The four Podemos deputies categorically reject an initiative that Ione Belarra calls "racist"—and for the first time the Socialist president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García Page, agrees—which, combined with the opposition of the PP and Vox, threatens to impede the proposal's processing. Another of Pedro Sánchez's commitments to Carles Puigdemont would thus be left hanging, with no chance of success.
Given this prospect, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero already summoned Puigdemont, at their meeting last Thursday, to hold another meeting without delay to discuss alternatives to Podemos's expected veto. One option the Socialists are already considering is trying to reinstate at least some of the measures in this initiative that do not require the status of law, to be salvaged via decree or some other means. The government already did so to reinstate points of the anti-blackout decree-law that Junts and Podemos agreed to overturn in July, slicing the law into pieces.
"We have complied, but we cannot answer for Podemos," the government claims."We have complied," the government warns. "But we cannot be held accountable for Podemos's position," they argue, in response to the party's refusal to process the PSOE and Junts law. The spokesperson for the Ferraz executive and secretary general of the Socialist group in Congress, Catalan Montse Mínguez, made the same assertion yesterday. "The PSOE complies with its agreements, negotiates, and works tirelessly with all groups," she argued. "Catalonia demands greater self-government, and there it will always find the PSOE's support," she admitted. However, she argued that although "the PSOE is responsible for its agreements, we cannot blame it for how other parties vote."
Mínguez opened the door to the government seeking a Plan B to salvage some aspects of this delegation of immigration powers to Catalonia: "Whether any aspect should be restored or not, we'll see later," he said.
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The PSOE spokesperson, however, ruled out in advance that if the initiative fails today in its first session in Congress, the entire legislature could be blown up by JxCat's reaction. "Every week is the end of the world and our legislature is coming to an end, but we've already been here for seven years," she retorted. "We've passed 43 laws in this legislature. Therefore, there is a government, there is dialogue, and there is progress," she concluded.
Mínguez demanded "time and leeway" until the vote in Congress takes place this afternoon, "to resolve any disagreements that may arise with the groups." And at Ferraz, they're keeping their fingers crossed, not throwing in the towel yet: "The vote is going to be very close; we'll have to wait and see." Depending on the outcome of the vote, the PSOE will announce its next step in this regard.
The Sumar Movement, the confederal coalition's parent group, has also been working in recent days to prevent the transfer of powers from failing at the first opportunity. However, in this case, it has worked with the coalition parties themselves in the project led by Yolanda Díaz, which is headed to the vote without a unified consensus and with no small number of disagreements among its members.
The public misgivings of the IU and Compromís deputies threaten to break the unity of the vote in Sumar.Despite the second vice president's appeal to the group's "plurinational vocation" and the need to understand decentralization as a democratic value, neither Izquierda Unida nor Compromís were convinced last night, and they will postpone the final decision until noon this afternoon.
According to the sources consulted, the most likely option is to abstain, arguing that they are trying to correct the most controversial aspects of the amendment process. However, a negative vote is also not ruled out if, when the time comes, they are certain their seats won't be decisive. The Chunta Aragonesista representative already allowed himself a license when he rejected the anti-blackout decree, having realized that his vote wouldn't alter the outcome.
Whether external or internal, the uncertainties surrounding the outcome make this afternoon's session a new test of the parliamentary arithmetic of Pedro Sánchez and the investiture bloc.
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