The PP's crusade to bring down Pedro Sánchez runs into the fact that it depends on Catalan and Basque parties for it to have real effects. In this context, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has revived one of those proposals that the popular party has in mind to end the dependence on independence movements in the Congress of Deputies and, in turn, also on Vox, to whom they are increasingly tied in more autonomies. The PP leader has proposed an electoral reform that would give the winning list a "plus" of deputies "to facilitate stability." A scenario that could have prevented Pedro Sánchez from governing this legislature in which the sum of PP and Vox fell just four deputies short of an absolute majority. This is what Feijóo defended in an interview this Monday on EsRadio, after being directly asked about ways to prevent "minority groups from being overrepresented" in the lower house.

This weekend, the PP of Catalonia held its congress, and the party leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, came and said: “Like most Catalans, we also want to turn the page”. The phrase has been interpreted as an offer to Junts so that one day it may be possible for the PP candidate for the presidency of the Spanish government to receive their votes. Junts must already know what they want to do, but it would seem that Feijóo is playing at an interested confusion: Junts voted with the PP and Vox that Sánchez had to resign, but has said in every way that he does not intend to invest Feijóo, meaning that for now Feijóo will have to wait.But it is interesting to delve into Feijóo's phrase to see what the popular candidate understands by wanting to turn the page.And the answer could not be more predictable: that Catalonia should return to the common regime autonomous path, that it should pay, that it should be silent, and if it has to do something exceptional, it should do so to offer new glories to Spain. And that's when Feijóo pulls the rabbit of the Sagrada Família out of his hat. Look at this tweet on social media:“The image of the Sagrada Família. The one the PP wants to represent”. It reminded me of what happened a few years ago, when TVE premiered Operación Triunfo and the PP said that the contest embodied their values of effort and meritocracy to achieve success. Does something work and is liked? They make it their own. Theirs, in their own way. Listen to this minute and a half of Feijóo, very revealing of the thinking he has about Catalonia:“I want to mention something that has surprised again, finally, and that we haven't seen in Catalonia for decades. It is a moment that moved millions of people, and it is none other than the extraordinary inauguration of the tower of Jesus of the Sagrada Familia with Pope Leo XIV. It was the symbol of a capable Catalonia, of a Catalonia that was thinking big again. Capable of doing extraordinary things and capable of building a collective ambition”. Look, Mr. Feijóo, I'm very glad you liked the blessing ceremony of the tallest tower of the Sagrada Família, but hire a speechwriter who doesn't mix apples and oranges. You say he's "surprised again, finally"? Finally what? "That we haven't seen Catalonia for decades"? Do you really think that Catalonia hasn't done anything good in 34 years, between the '92 Games and the inauguration the other day? Has representing 25% of Spanish exports and 20% of GDP happened on its own? Has the player that the followers of la roja pray to and who has half the world in love come up like a mushroom? Does it seem to you that wanting independence is not thinking big, that organizing a referendum to discuss it as the most democratic countries do is not characteristic of a country "capable of doing extraordinary things and capable of building a collective ambition?" Here, the one that is not capable of doing things is the State. And I'm not referring to doing extraordinary things, but ordinary ones, like getting trains to run. What is commendable, Mr. Feijóo, is that with the fiscal deficit – extraordinary, this one – that has been dragging on for decades, the Catalans, as your predecessor Rajoy used to say, do things. But please, continue. "That day we did not see one part of Catalonia impose itself on another; we did not see one part of Spain against the rest of Spain. No, what we saw was a part of Spain offering the best it has, and we want to see it again more".

The floodgates of political contempt have long been open in Spain, and the water of mutual contempt between the opposition and the government is at a record level. The worst thing is not that they mutually detest each other and permanently show it, but the effects this has on public opinion which will one day go to vote.

The future of Spanish political life is currently being played out in two different scenarios, each with its own rhythms and liturgies, making it difficult to make accurate predictions. The first arena is the judicial and the second, the strictly political. I place justice first because, for now, if Pedro Sánchez's government falls, it will not be due to management problems, serious errors in key economic decisions, or foreign relations. The siege on the executive is not being achieved by the opposition, but by the specialized units for economic crimes of the National Police and the Civil Guard, along with the judges and courts involved in the criminal prosecution of the PSOE. I am not talking about lawfare, but about a de facto situation, in which political events are marked by the content of the police reports and court proceedings.

It is the icing on the cake that Pedro Sánchez was left with after this week's debate in Congress on corruption: testing his strength within the PSOE. The party has met in a federal committee to set the course for next year's municipal and regional elections, and Sánchez's speech has already been in election mode. “The PP and Vox will never be the end of corruption, but rather the return of systemic corruption,” he assured, and said that the only thing that can prevent them from coming to power and repealing public services is the PSOE. In addition, he threw a jab at them for allying with Junts in Congress to demand his resignation this week and he did so with a gesture of complicity towards the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, who was sitting in one of the front rows of the federal committee: “Salva, dear president, the turns that life takes. Because to see the PP and Vox voting with Carles Puigdemont's party, trying to oust us from government with what they mounted with the amnesty [...] and now it turns out they agree.”

Junts' proposal that Pedro Sánchez resign and explore an alternative to the presidency of the Spanish government, preferably from an independent candidate, has been the focus of part of the debate in Madrid this week. The initiative has an eminently "strategic" reading, according to Junts sources, although the rest of the actors do not see it as viable and some dismiss it as a "stunt". The party calls it the "Starmer way", alluding to the resignation this week of the British Prime Minister. But what does Junts actually seek with this proposal, considering that the PSOE completely dismisses it?

PP, Vox and Junts yesterday demanded Sánchez's resignation or that he submit to a confidence vote through a vote that has no practical value because Sánchez will neither resign nor submit to a confidence vote. The vote has political value, of course, because 3 years ago Junts voted in favor of Sánchez's investiture and yesterday asked him to step down in a vote. And at the same time, it is no victory for the PP, because it does not have Junts's votes for a motion of censure which, that one sí, could bring down Sánchez. And despite everything, yesterday, at the moment of the results, both benches were shouting and applauding.

There is a rather comical inertia in journalism: when you need to inflate the dog on any topic you've already gone over a thousand times, bring in a non-verbal communication expert to finish the job. It's very useful. It gives an appearance of depth, of analytical insight loaded with superpowers, to explain what context and logic have already made obvious.The Antena 3 noticias team, in their voracious compulsion to destroy Pedro Sánchez, invited a professional expert on this matter to interpret his emotional and psychological state during the control session in Congress. Initially, he compared his image to that of a year ago in the same situation and highlighted that he was not wearing a tie, seeking a more informal and approachable appearance. Impressive. It is of admirable sagacity. Next, he pointed out that the Spanish president had started “quite nervously” because he was touching the papers with his notes on the speaker's podium. The newscast then created a magnifying effect on Sánchez's hand, so that those fingers automatically became suspects of any evil, even though barely any relevant movement was appreciated. To summarize, the specialist diagnosed that Sánchez was in a situation that reflected stress. It does not escape any minimally informed citizen that in recent months he must have been quite stressed.They also chose a fleeting moment when Yolanda Díaz was seen sitting on the bench consulting some papers. They decontextualized the image and enlarged it so much that it lost its sharpness. The specialist concluded that she “was focused on something else” and this meant that she was thinking: “I expect what is happening here”. Two seconds extracted from a long control session serve to demonstrate that Díaz, after more than five years as vice-president, it is quite logical that she knows the ropes in these sessions. The great analysis came at the time of deciphering Feijóo's attitude. From Antena 3, we would have been surprised by another conclusion. They extracted an image of an instant in which the PP leader moved his forearms up and down, to reinforce a statement. Just for that, for this well-chosen second, he sentenced that this way of addressing his target demonstrated "conviction and security". Of course, quite the opposite of Pedro Sánchez's nerves and stress. The hero of Congress, Feijóo. When Gabriel Rufián asked the Spanish president to look him in the eyes and Sánchez raised his gaze to look at him, the expert concluded: "Pedro Sánchez's reaction is one of freezing." It is difficult to imagine what else he could have done besides looking at him. And this, the expert used to reiterate the idea of touching papers to reduce stress.The funniest thing about it all is that the same communication expert seemed to have rehearsed his own gestures to convey security and authority in the matter. The elementary catalog on how to move your head, point your finger, and move your arms to have credibility on television. And he did it in such a staged way that the result was quite the opposite.

With the continuity of Pedro Sánchez's government in the spotlight, the general secretary of CCOO, Unai Sordo, has come out in defense of the president of the Spanish executive: "I believe he will not step down from the presidency, nor do I think he should, he must exhaust all that remains of his term", he stated during his speech at the summer course of the Menéndez Pelayo International University and the Association of Journalists of Economic Information, held this week in Santander.

The Congress has approved this Thursday, with the votes of PP, Vox, and Junts, that the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, resign or submit to a vote of confidence. After the vote, the right-wing bench rightly shouted "resignation" while the socialist deputies responded with applause to Sánchez, who left the hemicycle with an immutable smile. This is a symbolic vote, as Sánchez has no intention of making any move, but politically the alliance of Junts with the right to put pressure on the Spanish government is relevant. The gesture comes after yesterday Miriam Nogueras asked Pedro Sánchez to step aside and make way for another candidate to the presidency of the Spanish government.

There are days when a new situation is foreseen, in which even a change of era is sensed. And, from our point of view, this is what happened yesterday in Madrid.  The debate in Congress on Sánchez's explanations went as one might imagine: Sánchez defending himself against the PP with the "you too!" (because, of course, the PP can write encyclopedias about corruption), accusing the justice system of bias and therefore, of lawfare, making a somewhat forced turn, presenting the PSOE as a victim of the corruption of Ábalos and Cerdán, and reducing the crimes to a specific handful of delinquents. And Feijóo saying all sorts of things to him. And Rufián asking for a government plan. And Junts made an unexpected proposal, this one, to tell Sánchez: “we will invest a new socialist president and we will hold elections when the time comes, next year” (a proposal that Sánchez got rid of by inviting Junts to vote for a motion of no confidence from Feijóo, which Junts will not do). This would be an account adjusted to the facts of what we heard yesterday.But there was more, much more. Because, you know what? Feijóo told Sánchez that he will be indicted very soon. And the PP spokesperson in Congress said that there will be people who will start singing, like the corrupter Aldama, who will not go to prison and has saved three million euros in commissions that he will not have to return. In other words, the PP knows what the judges are preparing and what reports the Police and the Civil Guard are preparing. And in the afternoon, Begoña Gómez, Sánchez's wife, had to personally go and hand over her passport to the judge, and Zapatero's entire agenda was leaked.

The Congress of Deputies once again experienced one of those disastrous days this Wednesday that cause citizens to distance themselves from politics. The exchange of recriminations between the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, and the leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has brought no new developments and has only served to further tarnish the political climate, something that, as some spokespersons have rightly warned, primarily benefits the far-right. In a normal democracy, a verdict like the one in the Ábalos case, in a judicial process that has been suspiciously swift and with sentences that some jurists deem disproportionate, would be enough to bring down a government. But it is true that Spain has peculiarities that explain both Pedro Sánchez's resistance to throwing in the towel and why no partner is currently considering supporting a motion of no confidence alongside the PP and Vox.

While Pedro Sánchez stands up to the demand for early elections from the opposition and some of the investiture partners in Congress, the president of the employers' association CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, has emphasized the consequences of the Spanish government not having approved – in fact, not even presented – any budget law in the three years of legislature it has been in office. "In a company, if the director on duty does not present the budgets, he knows he is out on the street," he stated from Santander this Wednesday.

Pedro Sánchez has made a different intervention. There has been no announcement, he has defended his government's work and put on his lab coat to analyze the different judicial cases affecting Moncloa itself. The start of the intervention was already a statement of intent: "Let's examine the anatomy of the phenomenon," he said in relation to the judicial and political whirlwind happening in Madrid. And he continued: "Behind the accumulation of headlines, leaks, and speculations there are three different issues that certain political and media actors are trying to mix and equate to confuse people and create a sense of generalized corruption that does not exist." Moncloa sources conclude: "We have to start differentiating," they say, as the PP and Vox are taking advantage of this to magnify and present the government as an authentic "mafia," in the words of the right. "They mix everything in the same pot as if it were very serious," the same sources conclude.

Junts per Catalunya has taken advantage of Pedro Sánchez's appearance in Congress regarding the corruption cases that tarnish the PSOE to make a move and put a new roadmap on the table to ensure the continuity of the legislature. "Step aside and let this parliament put someone in who does have the capacity to fulfill commitments to Catalonia," Míriam Nogueras demanded during her speech. She considers the situation "unsustainable" and that the current Spanish president is the "main obstacle" for the legislature "to be able to culminate the objectives for which it was conceived." This unexpected proposal comes weeks after the leader of the Junts party in Madrid urged the Spanish president to dissolve the lower house: "What argument do you have left not to call elections?" she asked him just two months ago.

It has been almost a year since Pedro Sánchez was forced to appear before Congress to explain the judicial investigations that tarnish the PSOE. This Wednesday he has done so again in the face of the unstoppable trickle of cases that expand the list of suspects linked to the Spanish president and with a firm sentence for corruption against the former Minister of Transport José Luis Ábalos. Unlike the appearance on July 9 last year, in which the head of the executive presented a battery of anti-corruption measures to deal with these cases, on this occasion Sánchez has gone on the offensive against the leader of the opposition and president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and challenging partners like Junts to present a motion of no confidence. In an initial half-hour speech, the socialist leader distanced himself from both Ábalos and Santos Cerdán, his two former organization secretaries, defended José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and denounced "persecution" against his family.

The sentence of 24 years in prison for José Luis Ábalos, the harshest sentence for a former minister, has not changed Moncloa's script by even a millimeter. Although it is the first to affect Pedro Sánchez's government, from the executive they consider that the case was already discounted and that they distanced themselves at the opportune moment from the former head of Transport and a totem of the PSOE. "Before he was formally indicted, we asked him for his deputy's seat, and he ended up in the mixed group," they state from the Spanish government. Specifically, it was the federal executive committee of the PSOE on February 26, 2024: they gave him 24 hours to do so and assume political responsibility for the Koldo case, even though at that time there was no formal indictment of the former minister yet. Now, this in vigilando responsibility does not apply in Sánchez's case, for having trusted him, and Moncloa considers that he has already paid the political price for this case: by distancing himself and undertaking anti-corruption plans still in the process of implementation, also as a result of Santos Cerdán's case.

From the sentence of 24 years in prison for Ábalos and 19 years for his assistant Koldo, it stands out that the corrupter of both, Aldama, has been given 4, will not go to prison and will keep the money he received in commissions.

The General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) has opened the way to open proceedings against judge Juan Carlos Peinado, arguing that the bodyguards of the president's wife, Begoña Gómez, could help her flee. Despite the media noise, history shows that sanctioning a magistrate is almost a pipe dream. Recent examples support this: in 2024, the CGPJ ended up filing the proceedings against a judge who called the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez a "psychopath", and in February 2026, the conservative majority turned a blind eye to magistrates Eloy Velasco and Manuel Ruiz de Lara, who called the president's wife "Barbigoña", invoking freedom of expression.

The sentence of José Luis Ábalos is an exemplary conviction. Not only for the penalty of up to 24 years in prison imposed on the former minister and former right-hand man of Pedro Sánchez, but also for the prize that Víctor Aldama takes. The corrupt businessman in the case will not go to prison. The Supreme Court imposes a four-year deprivation of liberty that he can avoid thanks, among other things, to community work. It should be remembered that this is already the second benefit that Aldama obtains for allegedly collaborating with justice and talking about PSOE cases: he already left preventive detention to help in another case (that of hydrocarbons) and to provide information that could help with the ongoing investigations around the Koldo case.