From now on, Pedro Sanchez “will not be able to resort to the majority of investiture.” It is the result of the decision made yesterday by the Junts Executive in Perpignan (France): to break with the Government and go to the “opposition”, as it was verbalized Carles Puigdemont. In the absence of the party’s militancy validating this turn, and of knowing what it means, the independence leader has already advanced that his divorce of the PSOE will be visible in Congress: “The Government will be able to occupy seats, but it will not be able to approve Budgets, it will not be able to govern.” And he warned: “Problems are not solved by the minority.”
Son 350 the deputies with seats in the parliamentary seat of the Carrera de San Jerónimo. The Popular Party, Vox and the Navarro People’s Union (UPN) have 171 seats, so the parties that supported Sánchez’s investiture bring together the other 179, and were the majority. However, if the seven seats that Junts has are no longer integrated into this second block, the Government would lose that numerical superiority: the formations that supported the investiture would add 172 deputies while, with Puigdemont’s deputies, the opposition bench would rise to 178 parliamentarians.
This arithmetic is key because, without Junts, the Government’s ability to advance regulations in Congress is significantly weakened. So far this term, the Executive and the parties that comprise it -PSOE and Sumar- They have carried out 66 votes on their legislative initiativesbetween decrees, projects and law proposals (takes into consideration, opinions, amendments to the entire annulled…). Of those 66 votes on its proposals in which the Government emerged victorious, in 23 the result would have been different if Junts had not supported the Executive’s position. This is: the 35% of the Plenary proceedings of their own laws and decrees that have received the green light of Congress would not have moved forward without the neoconvergentes.
The percentage is even higher if we take into consideration the Government regulations that Junts has rejected in this legislature, letting them fall: of the 13 parliamentary defeats of its laws that the Executive has suffered, 11 have been caused by the no of Puigdemont’s.
In this way, if in this legislature the initiatives proposed by the Government have been submitted to 79 votes in the Plenary of Congress, without the support of Junts the balance would have been 36 defeats and 43 victories for Sanchez. In reality, the Executive has lost 16.5% of these votes (13), but, if Puigdemont had always been in the opposition, the 45,5% of these initiatives would have declined (36). This means that Junts voted almost half of the votes promoted by the Government.
In that 45.5% there are important standards that have obtained the approval of Congress, but they would not have moved forward without Junts. For this reason, Puigdemont’s decision to now join the “opposition” has a relevant impact at the level of governability – and, also, with regard to the daily life of Spaniards -. For example, if the neoconvergentes they would have always opted for nothe Law of Equal Representation would not have gone ahead. Nor the ruling on the Sustainable Mobility Law, which unlocks the arrival of 10,000 million euros of European funds, and the rule that establishes a complementary tax on multinational groups would have been truncated.
Among the texts that would not have been approved without Junts there are also six decrees. This formula is the resource available to the Executive to react quickly to circumstances that may occur. But, without Puigdemont’s support, Sánchez’s ability to maneuver through this tool will also be weakened.
The Government has validated 20 decrees so far this term. Six would not have gotten ahead without Junts – the 30%-, and among these is, for example, the standard that included the response measures to the tariffs announced by Donald Trump. The decree that completed the transposition of the European directive on the reconciliation of family life and the professional life of parents would not have prospered either. And, the text that established the arms embargo on Israel would have declined if Junts had earlier adopted the “opposition” stance that it now proposes. There are decrees, such as those relating to support measures for those affected by the Valencia disaster, that would have gone ahead even without the support of the neoconvergentes -they counted on him Yeah of the PP-, but the Government is far from bringing together the consensus of the opposition party on issues that have a greater ideological tinge, so its parliamentary action will be reduced in this sense.
Beyond the votes enacted by the Executive, it has been the usual trend for PSOE and Junts to agree on the meaning of their vote also when the author of the legislative initiatives is another group. So far this term, socialists and neoconvergentes They have voted the same 136 times -80%-while they have disagreed only 34 times -20%-. That proportion could change now after Junts’ decision to break with the Executive, waiting to see the small print of this determination.
Furthermore, only on six occasions in this legislature has Junts, with its vote, caused the opposition to approve an initiative that did not have the support of the socialists. “When Junts had to choose between the PP and the PSOE, they chose the PSOE,” Puigdemont recalled yesterday, who did not clarify to what extent he will now join the opposition’s position. But, in any case, the “change” will undermine the legislative capacity of the Government.