• Politics The PNV is hooked on the partners of the Government and begins to vote in favor of the Budgets but warns: "Even the tail everything is bull"

  • PSOE policy, Podemos and its pro-independence partners approve raising the salaries of Pedro Sánchez and his ministers by 2%

  • Policy The PNV calls for Sánchez to invest 235 million in the Basque Country and to lower the VAT on hairdressers to 10%

An "atypical" negotiation. This is how the PNV, until now a privileged partner of the Government, defines the transfer and vote market that has led to the processing of the General State Budgets for 2022. A process in which Basque nationalists have been relegated to a secondary position for the benefit of EH Bildu, its main adversary formation in the Basque Country, whose demands, more of a political than pecuniary nature, have been accepted by the Government along with those presented by ERC.

The Basque nationalist spokesman in the Congress of Deputies, Aitor Esteban, rejects having been cornered, but the truth is that at this point in the process his six seats are no longer essential for Pedro Sánchez to carry out the Budgets that guarantee continuity in La Moncloa until the end of the legislature.

They are helpful accessories.

Which means a script twist to the series that has been accompanying governments of all signs of the last five years in Spain.

As rarely happens, the PNV has been displaced and remains displaced.

On this occasion, Bildu has skilfully played the trick provided by his parliamentary alliance with ERC and can display political achievements with the Catalan secessionists that feed national aspirations.

Because in these Budgets, rather than seeking economic improvements, political concessions have been pursued that underpin the Catalan and Basque national construction.

Initiatives such as a mandatory minimum quota for Catalan or Basque on platforms such as Netflix or the exhibition of children's content in the Basque language for the children of Navarre have been started from the Government with the dissemination of the ETB children's channel in the community.

18 separatist votes

The two separatist formations go hand in hand and add 18 votes, which is a precious balance for the Government, which had enough to gather four more favorable seats from the minority parties to reach the bar of 176 yeses that mark the absolute majority and they ensure the approval of the accounts.

The PNV has not yet confirmed its definitive support for the Budgets, but few doubt that this support will be maintained until the end in the successive votes that will take place until this Thursday and, later, in the Senate.

For the time being, the Basques have placed themselves next to the government majority in all the partial votes that have taken place and maintain continuous contact with the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, to try to place the demands that still do not have the approval. good from La Moncloa.

As an anecdote, Bolaños phoned Esteban this Wednesday in the middle of a press conference, interrupting his appearance, when just a few minutes before the PNV spokesman was lamenting that the Government had opted for a different negotiation, going "little by little" in Instead of looking for a package with all the themes.

Among the claims that it has alive is the burying of the AVE tracks in Bilbao.

It is the star point.

Meanwhile, the Basque nationalists have only achieved the approval of 44 amendments, the vast majority of an investment nature and for an approximate amount of 55 million euros.

A humble figure when compared to that obtained by much smaller formations such as Nueva Canarias that, with a single seat in Congress, has managed to wrest amendments from the Executive that commit up to 100 million euros for the archipelago.

What the PNV achieved

In the more political field, the jewel that the PNV can exhibit is the transfer to the Basque Country of the management of the Minimum Vital Income, a concession that has also been made to ERC for Catalonia. The Catalan independentistas have been the great winners of these negotiations. Well, although they have not managed to scratch a lot of money in investments, they have achieved political concessions in the field of language and have consolidated Bildu - their sister party - as a new preferred partner.

Esteban assures, however, that he does not feel displaced by Bildu and warns that his negotiation has not been closed.

But the truth is that he even admits, for example, having been vetoed by Bildu when sponsoring an amendment that frees a game of 25 million for asbestos victims.

The two presented the same - it had been agreed to by the Basque Parliament - but they are not in the signature.

"They didn't even tell us. Someone vetoed us and you can imagine who it was."

New Times.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Bildu

  • PNV

  • Basque Country

  • Pedro Sanchez

  • Spain

  • Congress of Deputies

  • Aitor Esteban

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