European funds poison the relationship between Sánchez and Casado

It had been eight months that the president of the Government and the opposition leader did not maintain any direct contact.The last time they talked on the phone was in August on account of the crisis with Morocco on the border of Ceuta.As then, this Wednesday was Pablo Casado again who took the initiative to call Pedro Sánchez to be interested in the crisis of Ukraine and to “move his support,” according to PP sources.None of the parties believes that the conversation, about 25 minutes, is going to suppose a turning point in a relationship that everyone agrees to pointing out as "non -existent" and that Sanchez himself is rotated after the strategy of the popular of the popular oftry to throw shadows of doubt about the management of European funds.

In La Moncloa they limit themselves to pointing out that the relationship between the two "is what is" and those who have worked with the president warn that, in any case, Pedro Sánchez is not a "easy phone" man.In the specific case of his relationship with the opposition leader gives good signs of this.He has not called him for the Ukraine crisis and did not call him in summer when the Operation of Afghanistan occurred.In fact, since the last time the president lifted the phone to call the opposition leader has spent almost a year.Then he asked for an agreement to unlock the renewal of the CGPJ.Before, at the worst time of the first wave of pandemic, he also contacted him to ask for support from the alarm states.Casado's responses on such transcendent issues for the country made the president conclude that these contacts were completely unproductive.So he stopped calling.

“If the situation is, of course, it is not on our part.Casado has given very few signs of responsibility, ”they reason in Moncloa.In the government they recognize that, although the relationship had already been very touched for a long time, the PP campaign to discredit Spain against Brussels as a receiver of European funds has been the drop that has filled the glass.“It is not that he announces the president or the PSOE or the government, it is that he annoy his country, the people who need those funds so that their companies go back or so that their jobs are more worthy.This is very serious, ”he exposes a high position of the Executive that does not hide the deep discomfort that has caused married attitude in such a sensitive matter."It is a historical irresponsibility," he adds.

To such an extent comes anger that even in the context of a call for the Ukraine crisis, the president personally moved his discomfort.“The President of the Government has asked Pablo Casado to stop questioning the management of European funds.The government understands that the European Commission's response should be sufficient and that the strategy followed to date by the PP only damages the image of Spain, ”the Moncloa moved in a statement in a statement.Shortly after, Sanchez himself insisted before the media that the leader had asked the opposition "to cease and rectify its position because it is not good for Spain that the image of the main opposition party is damaged before European institutions".

European funds

Sánchez and his team, overturned for months in the management of European funds after making Spainof corruption.And this, according to government sources, further aggravates the president's distrust of the PP leader.

In La Moncloa they remember, however, that although the relationship between president and opposition leader is almost non -existent, contacts between the PSOE and the PP are continuous.There is a fluid relationship at the parliamentary level between Héctor Gómez and the popular spokeswoman, Cuca Gamarra, where day -to -day issues are discussed in Congress and where even the socialists have touched the options of an abstention in the vote of the labor reform with the opposition.

On a higher level, communication between the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and number two of the PP, Teodoro García Egea, remains fluid.Both carried out the negotiations for the renewal of the Court of Accounts, the Constitutional Court and the Ombudsman.The contact between the two continues to exist, although the possibilities of an agreement for the renewal of the CGPJ seem, today, void.In relation to the Ukraine crisis, it was the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, who this week reported information to the PP management, something he also did with the rest of the parliamentary groups.