Pedro Sánchez recovers his smile

MadridPedro Sánchez has been laughing for two weeks now, not like in his investiture debate when he mocked Alberto Núñez Feijóo's "I'm not president because I don't want to be," but he is laughing. In last week's control session, he told the PP leader "Cheer up, Alberto", and laughed, after the leader of the opposition announced that the Spanish president should appear before the commission of inquiry into the Koldo case in the Senate – it will be on October 30th. And this past Monday he also responded to Donald Trump's euphoria during his show to Sharm el-Sheikh over the ceasefire in Gaza.

The following day, in an interview on Cadena SER, the head of the State's executive branch acknowledged that he had been bothered by the mannerisms of the US president, who, with his speech addressing each of the European leaders one by one, showed that, for him, they are a kind of... . In Barcelona and Madrid, there have been massive pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and a significant segment of the population interprets the peace agreement promoted by Trump as benefiting Israel and whitewashing Benjamin Netanyahu. "Israel, with our help, has achieved everything it could achieve by force of arms. It has won," Trump said on Monday in the Knesset, the Parliament located in Jerusalem.

It is true that Sánchez has made his differences with the US president explicit and, in fact, has made it clear that "the main actors in the genocide will have to answer to justice." "There can be no impunity," he said Tuesday about Netanyahu. The Spanish president finds himself in a difficult situation in which he must balance. From a domestic political perspective, it plays in the Spanish president's favor to take up the Palestinian flag and present himself as Trump's ideological antagonist, but in the European Union (EU) he may be seen as someone who has too high a profile with respect to the US - he distanced himself from the 5% of GDP in military spending. However much the EU wants to aspire to strategic autonomy, its security remains dependent on the US and this week many member states have already agreed to buy American weapons to continue helping Ukraine.

Time will tell if it was a political mistake for Sánchez in Egypt to laugh at Trump, whose interest is to build a Riviera in the Gaza Strip. On the Spanish left, the conflict in the Middle East has become the mobilizing element of the legislature and an issue that could tip the vote, a union leader told ARA. As for the right, the PP knows that it cannot pursue a major opposition policy with Trump's threats to apply tariffs in Spain and impose sanctions on it. punishments for not reaching 5% of GDP for defense, as the US president reiterated this Friday.

Ábalos in freedom

Sánchez's affectionate gesture to Sharm el-Sheikh was probably spur of the moment and not premeditated. However, in Madrid, the mood has shifted and the PSOE is feeling optimistic. Before the summer, the imprisonment of Santos Cerdán seemed like it would bring down the Spanish government at any moment, but now sources at Ferraz believe that the alleged corruption case that also implicates former minister José Luis Ábalos is over and are looking at the polls: this Monday, the CIS (National Electoral Commission) pointed to an electoral victory for the PSOE with Vox. The same sources indicate that this is what the polls are indicating. trackings The judicial front continues to be, however, the main headache for the Moncloa government. Anecdotally, a senior official in the Spanish government couldn't hide his joy this week when he learned that businesswoman Carmen Pano, who had claimed to have delivered envelopes containing cash to Ferraz, chose not to testify at her appearance in the Senate. Ábalos's absence from prison has also given the PSOE some breathing space, and even within the Socialist party, they are beginning to doubt Cerdán's involvement and whether his imprisonment is proportionate. According to the investigating judge in the case, however, there are still pending proceedings that could strengthen the evidence regarding the alleged scheme to collect illegal commissions.

Sánchez insisted in the aforementioned interview on SER on Tuesday that he will see out his term until 2027. "Why?" he replied to the question of whether he could call early elections. He added: "Whenever Feijóo's leadership is questioned, in an attempt to close down the debate on who his replacement could be, the right-wing press puts forward a hypothetical early election. They do this to silence the succession debate within the PP. In the debate booths of the villa and cut from Madrid, many regional presidents of the PP off the record They show their discontent with Feijóo's strategy as leader of the opposition and even allow themselves to be loved as future leaders of the opposition."

Once it is assumed that he will continue governing even if he does not approve the budgets, his card is to wear down Feijóo. On the one hand, by feeding errors. "How are you going to Barcelona to present an immigration plan?", exclaim sources from Ferraz, who understand that this is the framework of the Catalan Alliance and Vox and that it does not benefit the PP in any way. Now Genoa intends to start to to oppose economic issues, as he hinted at in Wednesday's control session when Feijóo criticized the increase in self-employed contributions. For now, Sánchez is laughing again.