Spain: Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez reshuffles his government
Pedro Sanchez during a press conference at the Moncloa Palace, in Madrid, July 10, 2021. AFP - BORJA PUIG DE LA BELLACASA
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Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez reshuffled his government on Saturday, July 10, saying that the priority of the new team would be to "
consolidate economic recovery and job creation
" after the Covid-19 pandemic.
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This reshuffle does not affect the alliance between the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) of Mr Sanchez and the small radical left party Podemos, which retains its five portfolios, the changes affecting only some of the 17 portfolios held by members of the PSOE or personalities who are close to it.
During a brief address at the Moncloa Palace, seat of government, Mr. Sanchez notably announced the departure of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, replaced by the current Spanish Ambassador in Paris, José Manuel Albares.
He specified that the new team marked both "
a generational renewal
", since the average age is 50 years instead of 55 years previously, and an increase in the presence of women, who will now represent nearly both. third (63%) of the 22 ministers, instead of 54% in the previous government.
“
This will once again make our country a benchmark in terms of gender parity
,” commented Mr. Sanchez.
The number two in the outgoing government, the socialist Carmen Calvo, until then first vice-president and minister of the Presidency and Relations with Parliament, is also leaving the executive.
Recent months full of controversies
This is the first real reshuffle carried out by Mr. Sanchez since the inauguration of his government in January 2020, except for the replacement this year of two resigning ministers.
It comes as the government has been severely weakened in recent months by various setbacks or controversies.
Three months ago, the executive had suffered a terrible snub during the regional elections in Madrid, a historic bastion of the right, where the PSOE and Podemos had suffered a rout against the Popular Party (PP, conservative), which had presented the ballot as a kind of referendum on government policy.
More recently, the government's recent decision at the end of June to
pardon the Catalan separatist leaders
imprisoned following Catalonia's failed secession attempt in 2017 drew the disapproval of a large part of public opinion, according to several. polls, and supplied ammunition to the right-wing opposition. So much so that certain opinion polls now place the PP ahead of or on a par with the PSOE in the event of early legislative elections.
At the end of January, Mr. Sanchez had replaced his Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, whom he had chosen to lead the socialist campaign in the regional elections in Catalonia.
He then had to proceed at the end of March with a mini-reshuffle imposed by the sudden resignation of the government of the then leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, who had thrown himself into the battle for the regional elections in Madrid,
before abandoning the election. political life
on the evening of the May 4 elections.
Mr. Iglesias, who was then second vice-president of the government, had been replaced by the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Diaz, another Podemos official, who however only occupies the third vice-presidency in the current government hierarchy, behind Carmen Calvo and Nadia Calviño.
Spain has been plunged since the fall in 2018 of the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy (PP) in great political instability.
(With
AFP
)
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Pedro Sanchez