It might not be the most authoritative quote for a day like today, but here's Gabriel Rufián's line: "The PSOE, as a state party, as a party of the regime, tends toward certain inertias. The PSOE doesn't do anything; the PSOE is forced to do it." And Junts has only managed to force the PSOE to comply with part of the agreements. The same, by the way, is happening to Esquerra with its unique financing.
But this has only been part of the problem. Because the skill of the survivor, Sánchez, is that when it suits him, he acts as the guardian of the parliamentary monarchy and the two-party system, and when it suits him, he is capable of saying that there are Spanish judges who make politics, he is capable of standing up to Trump and NATO, and he stands up to Israel by championing the recognition of Palestine. And when does he choose to be the statesman or don the guise of the last hope of European social democracy? The answer is simple: when it suits him. By recognizing Palestine or refusing to increase military spending (further), he has sought to kill off any electoral gains he could make on the left. But, above all, what suits him best is for people to talk about what he wants, even if it's just the time change. And the agreements with the independence movement have already cost him enough votes. If Vox is closer to governing, it will be because of Junts, he will say.
Sánchez's slippery nature is a sign of the times. When Pujol filled the bucket with Socialist or Popular Party fish, it was a time when deals were sealed over dinner with his partners and governments fell if they were unable to pass a budget. Now Sánchez says publicly that he intends to govern until 2027, no matter what. Never have the votes of a Catalan party been so decisive in Congress as those of Junts (they made an election loser president), and rarely have they cost so much that it seemed so.
