Together and the PNB, uncomfortable with Sánchez and with Feijóo

The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, is trying again. He will not stop taking advantage of the judicial siege of Pedro Sánchez. He will not stop. His objective is to put maximum pressure on those who hold the key to breaking the socialist president's investiture majority, Junts and the PNB. He needs them to tip the scales or, at least, to unbalance them. He is, of course, fully aware that the presence of the far-right Vox is the factor that most prevents the Catalan and Basque nationalist right-wingers from embracing the end of sanchismo. That is why this time he winks at them with a motion of no confidence that would imply, as he has explained, an ephemeral government without Abascal's party with the sole objective of calling elections immediately. What he is telling them, therefore, is this: give me circumstantial support (without Vox) and let the ballot boxes decide what the next stage will be.

Only a few days ago, however, both Junts and the PNB already told him they were not signing up for a motion of no confidence. This Monday they have remained silent. We will see what they say on Tuesday. Certainly, both sides are uncomfortable with the accumulation of judicial cases affecting the sanchista PSOE. In Junts' case, the non-application of the amnesty undoubtedly also weighs heavily. As for the PNB, the fact that they are governing in coalition with the socialists in the Basque Country is incompatible with bringing down the PSOE at the state level: they would put themselves in danger in Bilbao.

But beyond the presentist conjuncture, the future that a new electoral scenario could open up also does not encourage either of the two formations to eventually go ahead: Junts is in frank demographic decline and the PNB is also not going through its best moment, with the abertzale left treading on its heels. And, of course, a future scenario of a PP-Vox government, as has been happening after the last electoral events in Extremadura, Aragon and Andalusia, would mean a brake on Basque and Catalan national aspirations, especially the latter: the danger of paralysis or directly of regression in matters such as amnesty, financing, infrastructure investments, transfers in immigration and the language in schools would skyrocket. With such a perspective, can Junts and the PNB endorse a motion of no confidence? The most elementary prudence leads them not to facilitate change, however critical they may be of Sánchez's executive, which also generates growing discomfort for them.

Feijóo, however, will not tire of insisting on it. The harassment and demolition of Sánchez will be the deafening music of the coming months. Non-stop. Music that, moreover, from time to time will continue to include siren songs to the nationalist right in Bilbao and Barcelona. The leader of the PP has nothing to lose, on the contrary: he will continue to make them uncomfortable and will force them, at the same time, to leave Sánchez alone, even if only in the realm of rhetoric and gestures. Driven by judicial noise, for Feijóo the issue is to build Sánchez's political loneliness, to corner him defensively. Let his resistance become an agony. An agony for Sánchez and for his Basque and Catalan nationalist partners, with whom he will oscillate between the stick and the carrot.