Genoa hastens the days to finish off the PP’s energy proposal with an alternative plan to the Government’s. She will be ready before next Tuesday because Feijóo wants to reach the debate with Sánchez in the Senate with his own strategy in the face of the energy crisis. Even so, the objective of the PP is another. They will seek to put the President of the Government on the ropes on issues “in which he does not feel comfortable,” they explain from his team. In the brainstorming that flies over Genoa the usual suspects appear: ETA, parliamentary relations with the investiture bloc, internal tensions in the Executive or a foreign policy that they consider “erratic”.
Sánchez’s ‘yes’ dislodged Genoa
Feijóo began the political course by throwing an órdago at Pedro Sánchez: a debate “serene and calm” in the Senate. The president picked up the glove, after Europe endorsed his energy strategy, and on Tuesday there will be a face-to-face meeting between the president of the government and the leader of the opposition in which Sánchez will not have a time limit. “That favors him”, the popular ones already underline.
The appointment is important and all the political actors involved know it. Moreover, both the Government and the Popular Party hesitated before its celebration. At first, the Executive reported that there would not be that debate requested by the leader of the opposition because that is what the control sessions were for, both in Congress and in the Senate. Feijóo is not a deputy and this casts a shadow over his figure as opposition leader because he has few opportunities to institutionally confront Sánchez.
But when it seemed that there would not be the debate that Feijóo wanted, the Prime Minister accepted. And then it was the PP who, at first, rejected it. “Sánchez has time to rectify and appear to talk about the economic and social uncertainties that affect this country, and not just energy,” they responded.
“We have already won the debate”
The truth is that the request to appear that was presented by the Ministry of the Presidency for Sánchez’s appearance established that he would do so to “report on the energy saving and management plan and its territorial perspective”, but also on the “economic context and social of the same”.
What does not convince the PP then? From Genoa they continue to insist that they “never rejected” the debate but that they hoped that Sánchez would agree to “talk about everything”. Even so, the popular ones are euphoric after the Government announced the reduction of VAT on gas from 21 to 5%, as they demanded from the outset. Feijóo will get chest of this. “We have already won the debate,” they say from their surroundings.
Feijóo’s opportunity to recover
Next Tuesday will be the second time that Sánchez and Feijóo confront their political projects in the Senate since the Galician took command of the PP. The first week of June they had their first face-to-face and the popular ones were left with a bad taste in their mouths because Núñez Feijóo made a big mistake. “We are already paying the risk premium at 250 points, the highest since the summer of 2014,” he said. That Tuesday the risk premium was 112 and in Genoa they blamed it on a mistake recognizing that they had obtained that data from “teletypes”.
In Genoa that mistake made him feel bad because almost his entire political strategy involves showing a “solvent” Feijóo economically. Sánchez has given them the opportunity to start the political course by making up for it.
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