Given its inability to carry out the General State Budgets for 2026, the Government applied itself to establish a narrative with which to remove iron from the absence of public accounts, arguing that it can govern perfectly with the extensions for more than two years.
However, Pedro Sanchez surprised at the beginning of the political course by certifying his intention to present the PGE bill for next year. And this commitment has been reaffirmed several times.
Why would Sánchez bother to take the proposal to Congress if he knows in advance that he does not have the votes to pass the parliamentary vote?
After all, the president could have repeated the way of working of the previous two years: stage their vocation to present them, but finally give up on the sterile process and extend those of the previous year.
So that If the Government perseveres in its efforts this time, it can only be due to some compelling reason. And it is the break with Junts, made official this Thursday, that sheds light on the underlying logic of this movement.
Miriam Nogueras has finalized the announcement with which two weeks ago Carles Puigdemont decreed that his party officially went into opposition, given the failure to comply with the Brussels agreements.
This Thursday, Nogueras clarified that Junts will veto all laws, those in process and future ones, that the Executive brings to Congress, forcing the legislature to “be blocked.”
Specifically, Nogueras has ruled that Junts will not support hypothetical Budgets for 2026. And, in this way, the project that Sánchez has committed to presenting is doomed to failure.
But with this controlled breakup, Sánchez obtains the perfect pretext to advance the elections.
It is hidden from no one that in recent months the evidence has multiplied that suggests that Sánchez could be thinking of dissolving the Cortes.
Firstly, the increasing difficulty of the PSOE in approving its legislative initiatives in Congress. To which is added the opening of a judicial investigation into cash payments from the PSOE to abalos. Sánchez’s remaining partners (Sumar included) announced that, in the scenario of irregular financing of the party, they would stop supporting the Government.
Faced with this paralysis, the PSOE has wanted to pressure the reaction of its supporters through successive probe balloons, with a view to a possible electoral advance. And this explains the propaganda campaigns on issues that are in principle mobilizing for the left, such as the war in Gaza, abortion or, now, the commemoration of the death of Franco.
On the other hand, The Government is ensuring the adhesion of social groups dependent on the treasurywho represent a good part of its electoral base.
And hence, in addition to guaranteeing the revaluation of pensions, the Government proposed this Wednesday to the unions a multi-year pact with salary increases so that public employees do not lose purchasing power.
In this context, the break with Junts (which surely figured in the Government’s projections) has put the icing on the cake of the amortization of the legislature.
But the announced failure of the Budgets It gives Sánchez the alibi he needed to resort to his plan B, which is to encourage the elections.
That, even after no resounding Junts, Moncloa has confirmed itself before this newspaper in its decision to present the budget project means that Sánchez sees this maneuver as a mere pre-electoral act.
Because it supports the script with which it can justify going to the polls: Junts, which has already voted a hundred times in Congress along with PP and Vox, has definitively joined the conservative ranks.
And, therefore, there is no choice but to go to the polls to free the Budgets of unprecedented social ambition from the blockade of the right, necessary to accompany the good progress of the economy that the Government can boast of.
A project that, furthermore, in order not to go beyond a declaration of electoral intentions, is not constrained by the material limitations imposed by accounting realismand therefore can accommodate all the gifts you want.
We should not expect that this strategy will lead to immediate elections. But it does pave the way for Sánchez to turn the unborn Budget into the core of his future electoral program, and the frustrated act of its presentation into the first pre-campaign act.