Get Back To Work – Euro Weekly News’ political opinion from Spain

THE Spanish Parliament’s summer recess is over. President Pedro Sanchez has a difficult couple of months in front of him; he will have to deal with the pandemic, national budget, and possible vote of no confidence.

The media has spread during the summer recess worrying Covid-19 figures. The spike in the numbers seems to coincide with the regional governments imposing stricter rules concerning the use of face masks.

The government will have to study if face masks provoke a viral load (amount of virus in the blood), which in turn affect the PCR tests which are screened on the general public. No other country in Europe has seen the pandemic figures rocket like the Spanish and most of the European countries have relaxed rules compared to Spain concerning the use of face masks.

Meanwhile, the first agenda on the restart has been the new school year, which has left many parents worried, due to the constantly increasing cases which are broadcasted by the news organisations.

The key to securing the national budget is for Sanchez to keep together his minority coalition government as the Podemos party has made it very clear to President Pedro Sanchez’s Party (PSOE) if they reach an agreement with Ciudadanos they will consider in which terms they will back the budget.

Moreover, the agreement with Ciudadanos would also anger the separatist Catalan parties who on more than one occasion have warned Mr Sanchez that they are not interested in the governability of Spain.

Before the summer recess, the right-wing party VOX stated in congress that they would try to instigate a vote of no confidence, however, this seems very unlikely to progress.

Nevertheless, the PSOE have their attention on the regional community of Madrid where they won the last elections but fell far from the majority needed to rule. It seems that the good relationship that Ciudadanos and PSOE have had over the last few months could culminate in a possible vote of no confidence against the PP party which governs the community.

What could happen next both epidemiologically and economically depends on how Pedro Sanchez deals politically with the upcoming agendas. Sanchez has to try to curb the pandemic, without jeopardising the already battered economy.

However, he seems to have washed his hands, leaving the communities to deal with the problems. And as an example, the magistrate José Mariño didn’t permit the strict restrictions that the Murcia government tried to impose, stating that it was not proportionate that because 0.2 per cent of the population is infected it doesn’t mean that the rest of the 99.80 per cent of the healthy Murcia people have to be restricted.

Moreover, the European Community has bailed out Spain with 140 billion euros which should help Mr Sanchez secure the national budget. However, Europe has also requested austerity measures which have dwindled the ambitious social agenda that the coalition originally announced.

In addition, Mr Sanchez’s constant flirtings with Ciudadanos has also provoked unrest in many of Podemos’ leaders. Therefore, there is no consensus even within the government which leaves President Pedro Sanchez with many ongoing issues to get to grips with.

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