Partners save Sánchez and eight ministers from appearing in Congress this week.

Madrid / BarcelonaThe political year begins in Congress as the previous session ended in July: with an examination of Pedro Sánchez by his party members. The People's Party (PP) had registered up to nine requests for urgent appearances—scheduled for this week—by the Spanish president himself and several ministers, but these requests were not approved. In most votes, the investiture partners saved the Spanish executive. Some of the groups had already warned that they would reject all appearances because the Spanish government has committed to having the ministers responsible for the fire crisis present. who will appear in the Senate this week They will also do so in Congress in the coming weeks. The PSOE has announced that the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and the Third Vice President and Minister for Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, will give their explanations on September 4 and 5, respectively, in a committee in Congress.

All the requests registered by the PP were rejected by just one or two votes, except in the case of the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, and the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, in which both votes ended in a tie and, as stipulated by the regulations, were also received. ERC has rejected all the appearances, and Junts, for its part, only spared Sánchez, Aagesen, and Ana Redondo, and voted in favor of the remaining requests. As for Podemos, it rejected all the appearances requested by the PP except for those of Minister Puente, Robles, and Aagesen.

"Four ministers are appearing in the Senate this week. Are they taking this as a joke?" complained the parliamentary spokesperson for the PSOE, Patxi López, in statements prior to Tuesday's session of the permanent deputation, referring to the set of requests from the party led by Alberto Núñ. It's common practice for the political year after the summer to begin with a flood of requests for ministers to appear from the opposition, but this time in particular, the PP wants to demonstrate all the open files the executive has. It is asking for Sánchez to appear for corruption; the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, for the prosecution of the State Attorney General; the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, for the debt forgiveness of the autonomous communities; several ministers for the fires; and the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, for the constant chaos in the railway service.

The PSOE and Sumar (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) wanted to focus the debate on the issue of the fires and protested that the PP regional presidents are not planning to give explanations in Parliament. "The PP has the powers, but it doesn't exercise them. The main measure is a list of arsonists with a bracelet to detect them. It's better to leave the occurrences for another time and assume the responsibilities that each one has," said Socialist Patxi López. From the Moncloa Palace, Spanish government spokesperson Pilar Alegría denounced that the PP's "pattern of conduct" when there are emergency situations is "to look for culprits within the Spanish government." Along the same lines, Sumar spokesperson Verónica Martínez denounced that a "register of climate deniers" is needed and accused the PP of "passing the buck" and "sowing institutional distrust."

The migration issue has been at the center of one of the clashes between the partners that make up the Spanish government and the PP and Vox. The PP has requested the appearance of the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, in view of the massive influx of migrants, especially in the Balearic Islands this summer. "Institutional racism has prevailed in the communities where the PP and Vox govern," criticized Socialist MP Luc Andre Diouf. A thesis also defended by representatives of Sumar and Podemos, while the far-right Vox has accused the Spanish government and the European Union of "fostering a migratory invasion."

New funding for Catalonia

The People's Party (PP) had also taken advantage of Tuesday's session to request Montero's appearance to explain the agreement to forgive part of the debt of the regional financing fund (FLA), which it agreed upon with the ERC (Regionalist Party), and which the Spanish government extended to the rest of the autonomous communities. However, Popular Party (PP) deputy Juan Bravo shifted the debate to the new financing agreed between the Spanish government and the Republicans. "In light of the quota, we propose financing for everyone," he said. Socialist MP Patricia Blanquer countered his remarks, defending "the need to reform the regional financing system" at the state level, but with "enormous consensus." Teresa Jordà, deputy spokesperson for the ERC in Congress, took the opportunity to demand that the Spanish government and the Catalan Socialists comply with the agreement. "We demand that the Spanish government comply, and that it do so soon if it wants to aspire to any further political negotiations," she warned.