Pedro Sánchez undoubtedly has many problems to face amid the flood of legal cases involving his family and political circle. But one of these concerns, according to sources at Moncloa, is not the possibility that the PNV and Junts join a motion of no confidence promoted by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, with the indispensable votes of the far-right Vox, to try to overthrow the Prime Minister.
The Partido Popular has been pressuring Junts and the PNV for months to join their votes with those of the PP and Vox and support in the Congress of Deputies an “instrumental” motion of no confidence, with Alberto Núñez Feijóo as the candidate for the presidency of the Government. The motion of no confidence is a mechanism that the law provides to withdraw confidence from the president, in this case Pedro Sánchez, and yesterday Feijóo specified his offer to the two nationalist parties: the motion would be to accelerate the calling of elections and in the government appointed once he is elected president, Vox would not be included. But nothing guarantees that these two conditions – elections in the short term and a government without Vox – will be met. It is rather an act of faith that is asked of the two parties.
Turn in the trial against David Sánchez. Yesterday, several officials from the Diputación de Badajoz testified that they do not recall any irregularity in the hiring of the Prime Minister’s brother as coordinator of the conservatories in 2017. They also stated that David Sánchez was “very hardworking.” But today the tables have turned with the testimony of Cristina de Frutos, another candidate for that job: “A friend told me three days before the interview that the position was for David Sánchez.”
The Government of the Generalitat is in contact with the Archdiocese of Barcelona and assures that it “works discreetly” to try to include Catalan in the blessing of the tower of Jesus of the Sagrada Família, which crowns Antoni Gaudí’s basilica and makes it the tallest church in the world.
The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, speaks at the second day of the annual meeting of the Cercle d’Economia, which brings together business and political leaders to discuss current issues at a time when the leader of the Popular Party is trying to convince Junts and PNV to support a motion of no confidence against Pedro Sánchez to force an early election.
The secretary general of Junts, Jordi Turull, has challenged the president of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to propose the instrumental motion of no confidence to remove Pedro Sánchez from La Moncloa and call general elections to the president of the party, Carles Puigdemont, in Waterloo.
The first witnesses deflated the accusations against David Sánchez yesterday. “I don’t remember,” “I have no evidence,” or “there were no irregularities” were the main statements during the long court session. The brother of the Prime Minister sits in the dock at the Badajoz Court accused of separate crimes of malfeasance and influence peddling for allegedly having been given a job at the Badajoz Provincial Council in 2017.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo is in Barcelona this Tuesday, where he will speak to Catalan entrepreneurs at the Cercle d’Economia sessions at a time of maximum political pressure for Junts to support an instrumental motion of no confidence to accelerate the calling of elections. According to sources from Feijóo’s team, the PP leader will deliver a “brave” speech during the dialogue he will have with economist Teresa García-Milà. The meeting in Barcelona takes place 24 hours after Feijóo himself expressed being “optimistic” about the possibility of a change of Government through the vote of no confidence because “184 deputies” in Congress “are demanding early and immediate elections.” “If those who say it are consistent and do it, we can find a solution in a short time,” he added yesterday.
Representatives of the Church, trade unions, employers, and the technology sector have defended this Monday the need to take action with unity in the face of the challenges posed by artificial intelligence (AI), within the framework of the public presentation in Spain of Magnifica humanitas, the encyclical with which Leo XIV addresses the impact of new technologies on human dignity and the future of work.
