Ángel Collado
After a six-month period of failures and paralysis, from the motions of censure to the pending reforms, Pedro Sánchez has come to recognise the severe crisis in the government, change half of his ministers and take on the quota of the five communists or populists appointed by Pablo Iglesias.
The chief executive has formed an even more pro-Sánchez cabinet, with politicians with little experience and less weight in the PSOE who owe their meteoric rise to the presidential favour, with which he is trying to regain the initiative.
The continuity with promotion to first vice-president of Nadia Calviño to give confidence in Brussels when it comes to securing European aid for economic recovery (70,000 million) is Sánchez’s main bet to last the entire legislature in the Palacio de la Moncloa.
Changing half the team in the first third of the term is the best proof of the urgency of the president of the government to overcome the blockage of projects and the internal lack of coordination that reigned in his cabinet. The outgoing cabinet members, from the vice-president Carmen Calvo to the chief of staff Iván Redondo or the head of foreign affairs, Arancha González Laya, pay for their own or their superior’s mistakes, as happens in these cases so that the boss can let go and continue.
The demerits of all the fallen were known and underlined by the opposition, as well as the superior responsibilities of their management. Although all political operations against the PP, such as the censure operations in the autonomous regions and the campaign against Isabel Díaz Ayuso, are attributed to Redondo, it is clear that they had Sánchez’s approval.
The key to the ministers equally burnt in the eyes of public opinion but who remain in office is also the survival of the chief executive. In this chapter, the head of the Interior Ministry, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, responsible for bringing ETA terrorist prisoners to the Basque Country and handing over control of the prisons to the Basque nationalist government, stands out. The support of the political heirs of the gang (5 seats in Congress) and the PNV (another 6) is fundamental for the government’s parliamentary stability.
Sánchez has also been unwilling or unable to touch the quota of Podemos ministers agreed with Pablo Iglesias. Yolanda Díaz was designated heir to the populist leader when he left the government and continues as vice-president and minister of labour. The same goes for the other four far-left incumbents, including Irene Montero, and after imposing her more ultra-feminist projects in the face of Carmen Calvo’s objections. The chief executive has preferred to snub the PSOE’s feminists rather than get into trouble with his podemite partners.
But Sánchez’s main bet to hold out for the remainder of the legislature is on economic policy, in order to aim for a period of recovery in the coming years. He has promoted the economy minister, Calviño, to first vice-president, the person in charge of ensuring the arrival in Spain of aid against the crisis. She has to bring order to the economic team and convince Brussels that the government will now take seriously the task of tackling the main pending reforms: the pension system, labour and tax legislation to curb the escalation of the public deficit.
In these new laws or changes to budgetary regulations, Sánchez is gambling the 70,000 million that his cabinet will distribute for economic recovery, the funds that will ensure his continuity in the Palace of La Moncloa until at least the end of 2023.
The head of the Executive has so far managed to avoid specifying the pension cuts and the “non-repeal” of the 2013 labour legislation, the one applied by Mariano Rajoy that pleased Brussels at the time.
