What does Sánchez aim for with the announcement of the budgets?

BarcelonaThe President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, has surprised both allies and adversaries at the Cercle d'Economia by announcing that this very week the order for the elaboration of the 2027 budgets will be published in the BOE. Needless to say, in the midst of a judicial storm against the PSOE and with the legislature about to enter its final year, the possibility of these accounts moving forward is almost non-existent. If it wasn't possible in 2024 and 2025, when there was still half a term left, it's even less so now. What, then, is behind this plot twist from the Spanish President?

To begin with, it must be said that the announcement is consistent with the strategy he has maintained throughout the entire legislature, which is to project an image of democratic normality and a willingness to exhaust the term with the aim of undermining the morale of an opposition that has tried to delegitimize the socialist executive since day one. Now, however, we must add another intention, which is to change the public conversation and counteract the wear and tear caused by the numerous judicial cases that are hounding the PSOE. Thus, it seems that Sánchez intends to turn this budget project into a springboard that will allow him to face the next elections in better conditions and by debating what interests him most, which are public policies.

The objective, therefore, would not be to approve the budgets but to force a debate in which the government feels particularly comfortable and to try to make the opposition parties bear the burden of voting no to a project that will certainly be expansive and will contain a multitude of proposals, for example in housing and infrastructure, to which it will not be so easy to say no. In reality, creating budgets is equivalent to drawing a model for the country, and Pedro Sánchez is above all interested in being able to confront the right on the country's model if he wants the slightest chance of repeating his term. However, the main obstacle Sánchez will face will be approving the stability path in Congress. If it is overthrown, as the PP, Vox, and Junts have already done in the past, everything will go up in smoke.

In his speech at the Cercle, Sánchez also made it clear that he intends to bring the new financing model to approval despite the boycott by the PP's autonomous governments, who have already announced they will not meet with the Secretary of State for Finance to discuss it. Unlike the budgets, however, the financing model does have some possibility of being approved, and it is Junts who can tip the scales. It would be incomprehensible for a measure that benefits Catalonia, even if considered a modest gain, not to be approved due to the votes against it from a Catalanist party. And even more so when the prospect is that of a PP and Vox government.

In any case, it has become clear in Barcelona that Pedro Sánchez intends to fight to the end with all the weapons at his disposal. And that of presenting a state budget project is not a minor weapon.