Feijóo is crushed between Sánchez and Abascal
BarcelonaPedro Sánchez finds himself in a situation of obvious parliamentary weakness. However, every time the leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has an opportunity to corner the Spanish prime minister, for one reason or another, he ends up failing. This is what happened this Wednesday in the debate in Congress on European rearmament, in which Feijóo found himself sandwiched between the attacks of the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, and those of Sánchez himself, who has dipped his toes in what he calls the "Ventorro Pact."
The PP leader already knew, when he took the podium, that Sánchez would attack from this angle, which is why he tried to distance himself from Vox for its defense of Donald Trump. But, in reality, what he was doing was showing his weakness. And neither Abascal nor Sánchez showed mercy and crushed him. "The alliance of the Popular Party and the Socialists in Brussels, where they govern together, has been weakening Europe for decades," proclaimed the Vox leader, before calling the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, "Chancellor Palpatine" and describing Feijóo's intervention as "a show." He even criticized him for the constitutional change agreed between the Christian Democrats and the Socialists in Germany: "Aren't you ashamed of your partners, Mr. Feijóo?" he retorted.
On other occasions, Abascal has been more condescending with Feijóo and focused his attacks on Sánchez, but that wasn't the case this Wednesday. Why? Because Vox smelled blood, sensing the PP's weakness after forcing Carlos Mazón and Fernando López Miras, from Murcia, to adopt its Europe-critical rhetoric. And now their goal is to grow at the expense of the PP. And that's why they're in no hurry to approve the regional budgets being drawn up in Murcia or Aragón. They know they can still pull the strings further.
In this context, it was clear that Sánchez would have plenty of ammunition to unleash Feijóo. The PSOE is very adept at playing with the calendar, and this time the pact between Mazón and Vox has suited the Spanish president like a glove. "We are not going to approve a denialist, sexist, and antisocial budget like the one agreed upon in Valencia," she told him. "You are at Mr. Abascal's command. If you want to be credible, break with the far right, do not give in to a pact as infamous as the Ventorro one [referring to the restaurant where Mazón visited on the day of the DANA]," she continued, before warning of the danger of this agreement extending to a hypothetical Spanish government.
The result of the debate, therefore, is that of a Feijóo completely blurred as leader of the opposition, incapable of reaching any kind of non-aggression pact with Vox, and hostage to the agreements of his men regional elections with the far right. This was precisely the situation in which he arrived at the elections of July 23, 2023, when he made a shortfall. Sánchez's undisguised objective is to regain ground in the 2027 municipal and regional elections as a prelude to the foreseeable repeat of the 2023 clash between him and Feijóo, which will take place a few months later (if the legislature holds). Feijóo, for his part, can only hope that the global reactionary wave will also take him to the Moncloa Palace, even if it means having to have Abascal in the Cabinet.
