FOLLOW, CONTINUE
FOLLOW, CONTINUE
The Government has decided that the labor reform must be approved by decree, without the parliamentary process required by formations as antagonistic as the PP or ERC. Indeed, in addition to the validation, ratified "in extremis" after the error of a popular deputy, the Plenary also rejected the day before yesterday the possibility of treating the reform as a bill. The groups have been excluded in practice from being able to modify or add anything to the text that the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, the employers and the unions negotiated for nine months, and that was announced on Christmas Eve.
Gabriel Rufián himself assured during the debate that Parliament is not a mere "notary" who "seals" the agreements, he said, but must participate in them.
An argument that Pablo Casado had insisted on in recent weeks, stressing that the role of the Cortes cannot be subordinated to that of social dialogue.
This circumstance made negotiations difficult. Moncloa's slogan was that what was agreed with CEOE, UGT and CCOO would not be affected. And so the socialist part of the executive transmitted it to its interlocutors, PNV and Ciudadanos (Cs), and the Minister of Labor to theirs, ERC and EH Bildu, with very different results. ERC sources assure that from the first moment the negotiation failed because there were no 'guarantees' that the PSOE would respect any advance or agreement with Díaz or Podemos. From the second vice president's team, whose gap with Rufián became an undisguised antagonism, they reiterate that ERC had proposals on the table and did not even respond. "It's a lie," say the Republicans, who describe a negotiation presided over by chaos until the eve of Thursday's plenary session in Congress. On Wednesday afternoon, Rufián telephoned the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and hinted at a three-way meeting with Díaz at the Labor Ministry headquarters. Bolaños, according to ERC sources, finds out at this precise moment and between the two they decide that the meeting will not take place. The priority of the strong man of the Government, especially seeing that the path of ERC and Bildu is destroyed, is to look again for the famous "variable geometry" and look at the center-right formations that have wanted to support the labor reform: Cs, the four deputies from the PDECat and the two from the Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN). Once the support of the latter was confirmed the day before the vote - which did not materialize later due to the rebellion of their parliamentarians in Madrid - the telephone between Díaz and the separatists stopped ringing. The conversation with the PNV was definitively broken on Thursday morning, just before the debate.
government-C; Cs-UPN
The day before, well into the night, he was active on the other side of the scale. Cs had publicly complained about the contempt of United We Can for his willingness to vote for the labor reform without touching the "not even a comma." Also, of the government's rejection, which had not contacted Inés Arrimadas's party to confirm his support.
Although sources from the Cs management assure that his position would not have changed, this was corrected on Wednesday afternoon. The party's spokesman, Edmundo Bal, received a call from Díaz who, as he did the next day in public, personally thanked him for his support. Later, Bal had several contacts with Bolaños and with his PSOE counterpart, Héctor Gómez, until finally the Minister of the Presidency telephoned Arrimadas. These conversations were essential for the leader of the liberals to speak with the president of the UPN, Javier Esparza, moments before he announced the vote in favor of his formation.
But his two deputies denounced the day before yesterday in Congress that they had been totally excluded. Adriana Lastra, deputy general secretary of the PSOE, yesterday denied the largest and guaranteed that the Socialist Group had spoken first with Sergio Sayas and Carlos García Adanero, reports Víctor Ruiz de Almirón. Both, during the morning of Thursday, were seen with deputies from the PP and Vox and the concern grew. But according to various parliamentary sources, Sayas said around eleven in the morning, in the presence of Gómez, Bal, Santos Cerdán and Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, that the two were going to carry out Esparza's orders. The surprise was capitalized by left and center when uncovering the Navarran cake.
forced negotiations
Wednesday afternoon: a date that did not happen
Yolanda Díaz offers Gabriel Rufián a car to go to the Ministry of Labor with her and Félix Bolaños. She finds out from ERC and they decide not to go to the meeting. Bolaños and Héctor Gómez intensify contacts with Edmundo Bal.
Wednesday night: courtesy visit to Arrimadas
Inés Arrimadas had called Javier Esparza (UPN) in the afternoon, before he announced the yes of the Navarrese to the labor reform. The president of Cs, already at night, receives a call from Félix Bolaños to check his support.
Thursday morning: a broken promise
Interviews with the founder of the PNV. Sergio Sayas and Carlos García Adanero (UPN) are against the yes to the labor reform, but Sayas, according to various sources, is committed to respecting the discipline of the vote before the different deputies. This was not the case.
