Ángel Collado
Overwhelmed by the consequences of the escalation in prices, especially electricity prices since last summer and in recent weeks aggravated by the rise in fuel prices, Pedro Sánchez has been encouraged this week to take action. He will be the last prime minister of a European Union country to do so, and he has closed his mind to any tax cuts like those applied in the rest of the EU.
The head of the Executive has three days ahead of him with agreements in the Council of Ministers and explanations in Congress that will be key to recovering the lost initiative and the stability of his cabinet, questioned even by his fixed partners in Podemos and his pro-independence allies.
Determined to gain time and delay any decision while waiting for the European Union to give him a tailor-made reform of the energy pricing system, Sánchez has had to settle for an EU-supervised permit to act in the domestic market that he could have explored as early as 8 March. The so-called “Iberian exceptionality” that he invokes as a great personal success has the novelty of including Portugal and includes the warning that it means postponing for another month any effective reduction in the price of electricity for consumers.
The President of the Government has a first appointment this Monday to start selling his response to the threat of economic recession posed by the invasion of Ukraine. It will be before a business forum, at the third ‘Generation of Opportunities’ meeting organised by Europa Press, which will be attended by directors and presidents of Spain’s main companies and banks.
Inflation of over 7 percent (the highest in the EU), soaring energy prices, plus the crises in the transport, agricultural and livestock sectors had been going on for some time, but neither before nor after Putin launched himself on the neighbouring country did Sánchez know how to react. Now, he wants to promote a “national plan of response to the economic consequences of the war” that will be approved in Tuesday’s Council of Ministers and of which some concrete details are expected to be presented to business leaders.
The month of accumulated paralysis in the response to the deterioration of the situation has led to such discontent among the self-employed hauliers that not even the agreement reached with the sector’s employers’ associations last Friday has served to put an end to the strike and the resulting problems in the distribution of all types of products. Sánchez intended to start the week with this front resolved, but the stubbornness of the Executive in not meeting with the self-employed, and even accusing them of serving the extreme right, has prevented the conflict from being resolved.
The agreement with the transport bosses, which includes aid and discounts on fuel purchases, will be included in the general plan to be approved by the Council of Ministers. And the same advantages are now awaited by farmers, stockbreeders and fishermen who are on the warpath, as they have no profit margin to maintain their farms or go to sea, among other factors, due to the price of diesel. The decree will also include the formula for intervening in the price of gas that the executive branch has come up with to bring about a reduction in the price of electricity.
On Wednesday in Congress, Sánchez has agreed to give explanations on the response to the economic crisis, or his delays in taking measures. In passing, he has agreed to speak in the same session, but not in a monographic meeting as the opposition and some of his allies demanded, about his turnaround in foreign policy: support for the annexation of the former Spanish Sahara by Morocco, albeit with some autonomous status.
If on economic policy the socialist leader shares the same aversion to lowering taxes as the communist sector of the cabinet, on the cession to Mohamed VI he is only criticised.
The president of the Executive did not consult the change in Spain’s official position on the matter with anyone, neither with his far-left and separatist partners nor with the PP as the governing party, and he will present himself in Congress alone, with no other support than the 120 PSOE deputies in the 350-member Chamber of Deputies.
Sánchez is gambling in these three exams this week, in front of businessmen, the sectors most burdened by energy prices and his own allies, a stability in power that he seemed to have guaranteed before the war in Ukraine left evidence of his lack of drive and ideas.
