A question of (dis)trust

Instability has dominated the current term and has made it difficult for the government to pursue its political agenda. It has failed to secure a single budget, and the executive branch's setbacks in Congress have been constant in the face of an investiture majority with conflicting interests, implacable opposition from the PP, and, above all, fickle support from Junts. Coexistence with allies has not been easy, and now trust has been shattered following the latest corruption case that directly implicates the PSOE.

Junts is caught between a PSOE riddled with corruption and a PP that denies it Catalan.

The investiture partners are faced with a difficult choice: support a PSOE under the shadow of corruption or let the government fall and give the PP and Vox a free pass. For now, while waiting for new audio recordings or WhatsApp messages to emerge, they are still opting for the former. This was demonstrated yesterday by Junts, which opened the round of contacts with Pedro Sánchez.

The post-Convergent parties have many open issues with the Executive that they've been unable to materialize. Amnesty, immigration, Catalan in Europe... these are issues that have been on the table for months, but there's no way to finalize them. Now they have the added problem that the negotiator they trusted is the alleged leader of a corrupt network that has paralyzed everything. Talks with Santos Cerdán had always been fluid, and his presence had been a degreaser in difficult situations.

Jordi Turull and Miriam Nogueras were tasked with reminding Sánchez of his outstanding scores, demanding guarantees and a new interlocutor to expedite the open issues. The post-Convergents are caught between a PSOE tainted by corruption and a PP that denies them any aspirations and has even threatened to outlaw them as a political party. Junts is smarting from the PP's efforts in Europe to thwart the possibility of Catalan becoming a co-official language, and that will be hard to forgive. At least not immediately, so they have no choice but to give Sánchez some breathing room.

With the exception of Podemos and the BNG, which have taken a tougher stance toward the government, Junts' attitude is similar to that of ERC, which wants the transfer of Rodalies and the special financing, or that of the PNV, which aims to complete the Gernika Statute... almost all of them have pending issues. Sánchez doesn't plan to submit to a vote of confidence; it would be difficult for him to be given a blank check again, but he wouldn't rule out starting to negotiate a budget in which his allies would have to weigh in. This would be a real vote of confidence, if the "toxic triangle" doesn't end up involving the government.