Sánchez confronts Feijóo in Congress amid the crisis over the Cerdán case.

BarcelonaThe clash over the Cerdán case between Spanish President Pedro Sánchez and the leader of the People's Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, reaches the Congress of Deputies this Wednesday. Sánchez appears today in a control session in which he will confront the opposition leader following the outbreak of the scandal over the alleged corruption scheme involving former PSOE organizational secretary Santos Cerdán, former minister José Luis Ábalos, and former transport advisor Koldo García. The PP accuses Sánchez of "protecting" corruption and asks him to call elections in light of the string of cases involving his party and his personal entourage, including his brother and his wife, Begoña Gómez.

However, Feijóo rules out presenting a motion of censure, which, for now, would be doomed to failure (only Vox would vote for it), and which he believes would only serve to give "oxygen" to the PSOE. The PP's efforts are now focused on forcing Sánchez to appear to address the Cerdán case, a request that led to renewed heckling of the House Speaker, Francina Armengol, on Tuesday. The president offered to appear on July 9, but even Sumar, as well as Esquerra, are demanding an early appearance.

Before the UCO report on the alleged bitesFeijóo had already focused on Cerdán's alleged dealings with Ábalos (who, incidentally, is still a member of Congress, although not affiliated). It was in the last control session, when he asked Sánchez about both this case and prosecution of the Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, due to the leak of emails from the defense of Isabel Díaz Ayuso's partner. Sánchez then avoided commenting on the man who was still the party's number three, around whom the PSOE was still closing ranks until that very day. The publication of the report triggered a total crisis within the party, which, for the moment, Sánchez has tried to quell by promising a commission of inquiry in Congress—which he already registered yesterday—and a new audit of the PSOE's accounts.

What will the partners do?

But the partners ask for more. After Podemos and the BNG have abandoned Sánchez in the round of contacts with the plurinational majority, Esquerra and Sumar demand reforms to remove corrupt companies from public works bidding processes, while Together gives you room to choose another interlocutor Following the fall from grace of Cerdán, with whom the regional government had established a very good relationship since the negotiation of the investiture pact. This Wednesday's session will be a test of how far the partners will push the Spanish government to take more forceful measures, pending the federal committee meeting on July 5, where the Socialists internally hope to study a more in-depth response to the case. In fact, Sánchez's presence at this Wednesday's oversight session is the result of a fluke: a UN summit he was supposed to attend has been canceled, so he will instead be attending the lower house.

In any case, both the plurinational majority and the Spanish government continue to wait to see whether the judicial investigation could take a new turn and implicate other Socialist leaders. The PNV, for example, warns that everything has a limit: "In politics, there must be ethics, and there is a line. We'll see what's in all this mess," said its president, Aitor Esteban, on Tuesday.