The Congress will complete a month without control sessions to the Government next week, but, in exchange, the plenary convened for Wednesday, May 22nd could break a record in terms of duration and relevant and controversial issues to discuss. In this omnibus session, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will appear to inform about several international political issues, especially to explain the reasons for the Council of Ministers’ approval of the recognition of Palestine as a State—likely to take place the following Tuesday—and his role in the crisis in the Middle East. His agenda also includes the situation of negotiations on Gibraltar with the United Kingdom and the results of the latest European Council. All of this takes place at the beginning of the campaign for the European Parliament elections, which will be held in Spain on June 9th, and still with the aftermath of the Catalan elections. The PP had demanded Sánchez’s presence to inform about a supposed conflict of interest related to his wife’s professional activities, Begoña Gómez, and that point has been incorporated into the packed agenda.
The upcoming Wednesday, May 22nd will undoubtedly be an intense day in the Congress. In this super plenary, all the topics that have been the subject of discussion between the main parties for weeks and months will be addressed. And all of this in the context of a new electoral battle. The last session of control to the Government took place on April 24th and due to the tradition of avoiding interference in the electoral campaign—in this case, the Catalan one—activity in the lower chamber has been significantly reduced to only a few committee meetings. The following week, work will resume for a few days, right before another pause due to the European elections, and at a time when the panorama of alliances in Catalonia may not yet be clear after the results of May 12th, which will likely affect the control questions of the Catalan independentist parties.
The Board of Spokespersons of the Congress, which organizes the debates, decided on Tuesday, due to the accumulation of requests for appearances—especially four from the President—to combine them all. The decision was made without discussion and unanimously, although later, the PP seized the opportunity to criticize the government and the PSOE for trying to hide their interest in focusing on their request for Pedro Sánchez to clarify everything related to an alleged “conflict of interest” that may have affected what they call the “environment of the President of the Government.” With this reference, they allude to his wife, Begoña Gómez, and her professional activities at the Instituto de Empresa and the University Complutense of Madrid.
The PSOE and its usual partners in Congress accepted the PP’s request because, according to their spokesperson, Patxi López, “neither Sánchez nor the Government have anything to hide.” However, it was precisely the harassment that Begoña Gómez was subjected to, both politically, mediatically, and judicially, with a complaint filed by the pseudo union Manos Limpias and admitted by a judge, that prompted Sánchez to take up to five days to reflect on whether it was worth continuing in politics. The plenary next week will thus be the parliamentary reappearance of the President after announcing that pause in his activity and later confirming that he will continue leading the Government. Patxi López, however, lamented the PP’s “strategy” and living in a country “where innocence must be demonstrated and not guilt.” He concluded that in this case, “the innocent are victims, and victims are protected in a rule of law.”
The PP, despite fearing that the Government may overshadow the case of Begoña Gómez on that day with an endless plenary session full of relevant issues, continues with its strategy of keeping the threat of summoning the President’s wife to inquire about her letters of recommendation and meetings with different companies in the investigation commission of the Koldo case, which dominates the agenda and calendar in the Senate. The PSOE, on the other hand, wants to regain the momentum in the Congress to show that it continues to work in the Government, focusing on projects that highlight its left-leaning profile to the voters and some of its allies. Next Tuesday, the socialists have registered for debate the bill punishing pimping to advance towards the prohibition of prostitution, as promised on several occasions by Sánchez and stated in resolutions of the party. A debate where they hope to gather majority support in the Chamber, although some parties are still withholding their position. Sumar, for example, is reserving the vote, with sources from that formation arguing that the socialists are reintroducing their proposition because they are already thinking about the European campaign.
