Podemos backs down and gives Sánchez a boost with two key votes.

MadridWhen Pedro Sánchez left the chamber of Congress about twenty minutes after the start of Wednesday's plenary session, having already undergone the control session, the day's prospects were not good for the Prime Minister. In this week's head-to-head debate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo took the offensive against him a step further and announced that the PP will summon him to appear before the commission of inquiry into the Koldo/Ábalos case in the Senate, where the PP holds an absolute majority, during the month of October. At that time, two initiatives relevant to the executive branch, such as the decree embargoing arms against Israel and the law on sustainable mobility—whose approval depends on the arrival of €10 billion in European funds—were still up in the air due to the reluctance of Podemos. However, the developments during the day meant that when Sánchez left the lower house ten hours later, after the votes, he did so victorious amid smiles, applause, and back-slapping from his supporters.

The reason for this parliamentary victory is that the Lilac party has backed down and withdrawn its threat to overturn both laws, although Ione Belarra's party has failed to move the PSOE's position. At midday, Podemos announced its first retreat, stating in a video released by the party—thus avoiding press questioning—that it would ultimately vote in favor of the arms embargo decree. The Lilac party has maintained its criticism of the law but has argued that allowing its ratification will demonstrate that it is an "embargo." fake"We think it's the best way for everyone to see that Spain continues to maintain military relations with Israel and that this isn't due to any vote from any parliamentary group," maintains the purple party, which has rejected this as "the PSOE's excuse for doing nothing." The Ministry of Transport had set a condition for abstaining. The purple party had set a halt to the expansion of El Prat airport. as explained by AHORA, and what Podemos has achieved is putting it in writing as a "political commitment," as the Lilacs claim. "There is no change whatsoever," confirmed Transport Minister Óscar Puente in a subsequent press conference. The Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau, also spoke out. in a message to X: "The commitment to enlargement remains intact. The investment remains intact. The schedule remains intact. Always with the maximum environmental rigor."

The Comuns have made blood, and in a statement they have criticized that the agreement "limits itself to establishing conditions that were already in force" and "imply assumes" the enlargement. The spokesperson for Junts in Congress, Míriam Nogueras, has criticized X for Podemos's intention to "decide for the Catalans" after precisely the No of the lilacs prevented the processing of its proposal for the delegation of powers in immigration.

Within the framework of this negotiation between Podemos and the Spanish government, environmental organizations in favor of the law's approval lobbied Congress this Wednesday to ensure the law would not fail. So did organizations opposed to the arms trade with Israel, which advocated approving the decree, even if it was minimal, having seen it in danger. The unblocking of the law in extremis The two regulations highlight Sánchez's parliamentary precariousness, who, despite celebrating the victory, has been left with little benefit of the fact that the headline of the day was a double failure.

A new Alberto Casero?

In fact, for a while it seemed that Wednesday's vote would have parallels with the troubled vote on Yolanda Díaz's labor reform more than three years ago, when Alberto Casero, a former PP deputy, became the center of attention for his mistake that saved the law at the last minute and against all odds. In this case, it was the absence of another PP MP that led to the belief that Sánchez could achieve that positive balance of the day before Podemos announced the weak agreement with the Ministry of Transport.

The realization that Guillermo Mariscal, PP deputy for the Canary Islands and third secretary of the Bureau, had not attended the plenary session for personal reasons—he is on leave for a wedding—and had not been granted the right to vote electronically has made it seem that without his vote, the plurinational majority would have one more Deputy who would change bloc and vote against (174). In this way, the voting direction of the purple party would have become irrelevant. However, the absence of a PNV deputy, Mikel Legarda, due to illness has interrupted this scenario because, without him, the Yeah and the No They would have tied, causing a parliamentary defeat.

Feijóo's masked announcement

Given these twists and turns, what Feijóo had billed as a bombshell announcement—the summoning of Sánchez to the Senate in the coming weeks over the alleged corruption scandal, which the PP had long been keeping as an ace up its sleeve—has been relegated to the background. From the outset, the PSOE has been scornful of him. "Cheer up, Alberto," Sánchez replied. Puente has furthered his scorn of the PP leader by sharing a video on X in which he compares him to his predecessor, Pablo Casado, predicting that he will end up following in his footsteps.

Vox has also ignored the PP's announcement, which sources from Santiago Abascal's party attribute to Feijóo acting "with his eyes on the rearview mirror" through which he sees how the far right is closing in on him, and he has also given no respite to the PP and has dedicated himself to attacking them on other fronts, such as the management of immigration. The PP leader, on the other hand, has argued that it is The latest report from the Civil Guard on the Ábalos case Which ultimately led him to cross the line of summoning Sánchez. "It's over. It's not that I'm surrounded by corruption; it's impossible to have committed crimes without you," the conservative leader proclaimed.