If a man is worth his word, the Spanish Prime Minister’s share price dropped several notches yesterday when he changed his mind again and handed over the Pamplona mayor’s office to EH Bildu, the political heirs of ETA, after agreeing with them on a motion of censure of the current mayor, Cristina Ibarrola, of UPN. One day after the PSOE defended in Congress the Amnesty Law that it rejected until…
José Carlos Díez explains that last week the investiture session was resolved. The result of 23 July was uncertain and required an agreement with Junts and the complexity of negotiating with its leader in Brussels, where he has been on the run from justice since 2017. Since 1993 we have been accustomed to negotiations of this type to form majorities. However, there are two nuances that differentiate the current situation:…
Fernando González Urbaneja| The procedure adopted by the acting president Pedro Sánchez to impose an amnesty in favour of the Catalan independence movement is the culmination of “trágala” as a form of government that has little to do with the formalities of democracy. The dictionary defines trágala as “an act by which someone is forced to accept or endure something by force”. The amnesty that is so much talked about…
Fernando González Urbaneja| The outgoing government has rubber-stamped a pact for the incoming government, signed with solemnity to convey an idea of hard bargaining within the cabinet. At least on the part of the cabinet, since the Podemos faction has been left out of the negotiation led by Yolanda Díaz under the SUMAR brand. The Podemos faction has been left with the option of throwing a hissyfit and little else,…
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and the acting Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, have ended a long-awaited meeting after little more than an hour with no agreements to conclude. During the meeting, the candidate designated by Felipe VI handed Sánchez a document ‘For the equality and welfare of all Spaniards’, an eleven-point agreement in which he asks for support for his investiture in order to tackle six State…
Fernando González Urbaneja | The “alcaldada” of the Congress that must be approved this Monday to allow ERC and Junts to form their own parliamentary group, with the economic and parliamentary advantages it entails, will use on this occasion a cruder formula than the previous ones. On other occasions, the number of deputies of the pretender was completed in order to reach the number of deputies foreseen in the regulations…
The European Union is receiving with a certain scepticism the Spanish government’s intention to make Catalan, Galician and Basque official languages within the institutions. Although most countries do not yet have a fixed position, especially because the situation has arisen during the holiday period – Brussels is closed in August – many hope that Spain’s political problems do not end up spilling over into the EU-27 club. This is the…
Fernando González Urbaneja| An “alcaldada” is an “imprudent or inconsiderate action executed by a mayor (or any authority) abusing the authority he or she exercises”. A more demanding reading of such an action might consider the hypothesis that an alcaldada can reach the character of prevarication (knowingly unjust resolution) or even embezzlement (misuse or abuse of resources of others). What the Bureau of Congress may resolve next week takes the…
Renta 4| European markets open flat (Eurostoxx futures +0.2%, S&P futures +0.3%), with the focus today on August PMIs and Nvidia’s results and awaiting tomorrow’s central bankers’ meeting in Jackson Hole. On the macroeconomic front, the focus will be on the preliminary PMIs for August. This morning in Japan, the data shows weakness in industry and resilience in services: manufacturing 49.7 (49.6 previously) and services 54.3 (53.8 previously). The same…
Despite the victory of the Partido Popular with 137 seats (the postal vote count has given it one more seat, 137, at the expense of the PSOE, which is left with 121), Nuñez Feijóo is far from the 176 needed to be able to govern Spain, even if a coalition with Vox, which won 33, were to take place. If those 170 votes were added to those of UPN (1)…