Sánchez obtains, with reservations, majority support for the plan against the war and receives unanimous criticism for the Sahara

History is full of great speeches for a war. epics. Solemn. Determinants. Motivators. eloquent. There is that of Frederick the Great to the Prussian troops before engaging in combat. There is the one that Isabel I directed to the soldiers that she kept in Tilbury to repel the Invincible Armada that Felipe II sent to dethrone her. There are those who, in the midst of the Cold War and with a difference of just three days, stitched together Eisenhower and JFKennedy. And there is the quintessential harangue of Churchill, after the fall of Chamberlain, during the Second World War and with Holland about to fall under the Nazi yoke.

Pedro Sánchez is not a man of grand speeches, and the one he gave before Parliament this Wednesday to explain the National Response Plan to the War in Ukraine cannot be said to be imposing, but it is correct, institutional, solemn, serious and full of realism. "Our lives and our economy will feel the effects of the war" and "the security and well-being of our country are at risk if we do not act with determination" were phrases that thundered in a chamber in which this time, at least, there was no calls to order, no boos, no interruptions. Something that is appreciated given the situation and coming from the politics of noise and expletive that we have come from since the Legislature began.

The President of the Government went up to the rostrum at the same moment that the INE data corresponding to the advance indicator of the CPI for March came out. Again, a historical figure and a rise to 9.8% in prices, the largest since 1985. A bad figure that he blamed in large part on the price of energy and unprocessed food, two elements directly related to the war in Russia.

Sánchez did not try to put hot towels on the situation, but he did repeatedly ask for "political unity" and to put aside "sectarianism" to support the measures that the Government has implemented to mitigate the consequences of the war. “For the good of Spain and Europe. It does not seem to me that asking for support and unity in the midst of a pandemic and a war in Europe is too much to ask. Let's make it possible this time”, she firmly demanded before reiterating that the new political order poses a threat of global destabilization, which could lead Europe to the “worst case scenario”, which could be “a long post-war”.

“What else has to happen for us to respond together?” asked who during his mandate, in addition to a pandemic and the consequences of this war, has had to face the eruption of a volcano and even a storm of desert sand. Again, a call to the "intelligence, capacity and common sense" of all political forces "to properly understand the moment we live in." A claim that he combined with the enhancement of "European patriotism" in the face of challenges "as colossal" as the Russian invasion.

Not for those. With PP and Vox he preached in the desert. This Government has not had a moment of tranquility and not the best of scenarios since it arrived at La Moncloa. Due to the outbreak of a pandemic, due to the eruption of a volcano, due to a precarious majority, due to a virulent opposition, due to the difficult cohabitation between its partners, due to the price of electricity, due to the inflationary spiral, due to a war in the heart of Europe and, of course, also because of their own mistakes.

With Casado or with Feijóo, the right does not seem willing to give him a truce, according to the intervention that the current coordinator of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, who not only described Sánchez's plan as "insufficient", but also downplayed the relevance of the so-called “Iberian exception” that the president achieved in the European Council to decouple the price of gas from the electricity bill. “The only exceptionality in Spain is his Government”, he affirmed while stressing that the “collapse of him as ruler is the decline of the country and the ruin of the Spaniards”. For the PP, the only problem of Spain and the Spaniards is called Sánchez.

A PP that drags its feet after Abascal

Little more to add about an inflamed, disorderly intervention, without a single contribution that ran in similar terms to the one that Santiago Abascal would later sing. The discontent of the Government with the popular goes beyond its harmony with the extreme right because for those who have starred in the round of consultations with the parliamentary groups before the drafting of the decree of measures against the crisis, it is a clamor that the PP, despite his inflamed speech and his repeated request for a generalized tax cut, has not sent a single proposal to La Moncloa. And this despite the fact that Gamarra, during the debate, proudly complained that the anti-crisis decree had not been negotiated, but imposed in a kind of "this is lentils, if you want them, take them and if you don't leave them."

Soflamas aside, the shadow of Vox continues to be long for a PP that drags its feet and also its opposition strategy against its main competitor in the bloc, whose leader was lost in the gallery with grandiloquent phrases about the patience of the Spanish, the "traps ” and the “ideological fanaticism” of the Executive and the “ideological obsessions” of the Prime Minister.

All in all, this time it does not seem that when the vote arrives, within 30 days, to validate the decree of the measures against the inflationary spiral, there will be shocks as with the labor reform. Sánchez left Parliament with a large guaranteed majority that will come, above all, from the groups that made his investiture possible. None made explicit the meaning of his vote, but they did say that "it will be difficult" to vote against the decree. With those words, Aitor Esteban (PNV) and in similar terms Gabriel Rufián (ERC) affirmed it, beyond his criticism of the conjunctural and non-structural nature of the measures and the possibility that the text be processed as a bill in order to introduce improvements. A scenario that they rule out in La Moncloa with the following arguments: "Neither is this a contest of ideas nor does it make sense to delay the debate given the time horizon of the measures."

Much worse off came the Chief Executive from the unanimous response of the Chamber to the change in the historical position on the Sahara. There he found neither support nor understanding from the right, but neither from his investiture partners nor from the government. Right and left, the criticism was unanimous about a decision that Sánchez, in his first speech, first attributed to "a state matter" aligned with that of "our European partners" and minutes later, attributed to a decision of my own that "I have made fully willing to take a step forward”.

Later, he framed the support for Morocco's autonomy path in the latest UN resolutions that seek solutions accepted by all the parties involved and, above all, in the letters and public statements of the Governments of France, Germany and the High Representative of the EU, although he avoided mentioning that the same line was defended by Donald Trump and has also been maintained by Joe Biden. For Sánchez, ending what has been Spain's historical position for 47 years is "a window of opportunity" to become "an active and not a passive actor" and begin to channel the conflict in another way.

The popular Cuca Gamarra, in fact, spent much more time talking about the "unilateral turn" that she attributed to Sánchez than to the consequences of the "brutal inflation" suffered by companies and individuals. In her opinion, “a consensus” on the Sahara has been broken that had been defended until now, according to her criteria, by the previous six former presidents who preceded Sánchez. And this time the PP did not stay only because ERC, PNV, EH Bildu or BNG, but also United We Can made the president ugly by that rupture of historical neutrality. The Republican Rufián understood that "there are reasons that cannot be explained", but he prayed that at least "we are not taken for idiots". All agreed in one way or another on the "lack of respect" for the Chamber, "the betrayal" of the Saharawi people or "the humiliation" of Morocco when leaking the letter that the president sent to Mohamed VI.

Echenique and Feijóo's "drug trafficker friends"

Pablo Echenique, who minutes before had stirred up the popular caucus by saying that Feijóo "has drug trafficker friends", also did not accept Sánchez's explanations about the Sahara that, in his opinion, follow the position set by former US President Donald Trump and They are also "little shared and understood by Spanish society", which is more in favor of self-determination. Of course, he clarified that his rejection was from a loyal criticism as a coalition partner and while several deputies from his group demonstrated in front of Congress in support of the Saharawi people while the president appeared before the plenary session.

In La Moncloa they defend that the change of position responds to reasons of State – which have not yet been given – and that the political and social unrest will be diluted over time. “I am not downplaying the importance of the decision, but it is appropriate to point out that when the presidents of the Government have encountered this issue they have understood its enormous complexity and I ask them to also value that complexity,” Sánchez asked the rest of the groups without any success. parliamentarians. Some because it is a question of human rights and a moral debt and others, because any question is good to stir up Sánchez.