it has taken Him over eight months to have a Government, and now Pedro Sanchez wants to speed up and return as quickly as possible to dominate the agenda and the initiative. One of the first actions of the president, that might seem minor but it has political consequences, is a change in the day of the Council of Ministers. No longer will be Friday, at the end of the week, but “early”, as explained by him in a letter to his ministers. Not specific on the day, but on Tuesday, pointing to it as a day most likely given that Mondays are usually the days reserved to the executive of the parties. The committee of secretaries, which prepares the council, that now it was the Wednesday, will on Thursday (to read the full letter, click here).
Sanchez tried to change the day when it came to the Government in 2018, but the resistance of the officials and the technical problems that generated made him desist. The president and his team are very clear that Friday is a day of lousy to make decisions of significance, because it loses its impact in the media on the weekend. Sanchez wants to thus mark the agenda since the beginning of the week and take advantage of the huge advantage of having the Government to dominate the times political. The president has changed spokesperson and has put in the delicate position of the minister of Finance, Maria Jesus Montero, to enhance the political weight of that position. In a coalition Government with Paul Churches within, a most little and powerful opposition, communication will be key, and the team of Sanchez’s decision-making from the first moment to improve it.
The other great challenge of the Government from the political point of view is the unit. In June, Sanchez refused until the last moment to negotiate a coalition with United we Can, precisely because I feared that there would be two governments, and not one cohesive. Now that the repeat election and the fall of both the PSOE as United We were forced to be, Sanchez is very concerned to make it clear from the beginning that this will be a unified Government. The president has made it very clear in the letter that you have received all of the ministers at the first meeting of the Council.
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“Among those who will take a seat in the Council of Ministers, there are people of very different trajectories and backgrounds. There are affiliated parties members of the coalition and there are also members who are independent; living generations and professional experiences are very different. People who have devoted their life to doing political and social activism and people who have developed their professional careers in academic institutions, business entities or international organizations”, points out the president to remember the particular composition of this Executive.
But that throws the message on the unit that is clearly written, although it is the subject that most have spoken in private the leaders of the PSOE and United we Can. “We integrate therefore something more than a coalition Government, forming a government that is plural, but born with a firm purpose of unity. A Government that is enriched with various backgrounds, but have one goal; who will speak with several voices, but to broadcast the same message. The parties forming the coalition we have already established rules and procedures to ensure the coordination of the action of the Government.
But on top of those rules, we have two guarantees of understanding and loyalty: a common will to serve Spain and the spaniards, and a progressive vision of society; that is to say the belief that our society can achieve higher levels of well-being, justice and freedom through human action organized. The progressive Government is based on the coalition of two political forces, but it wants to go much beyond the games that comprise it and of those others who hold it: it is a Government that seeks a coalition with the vast majority of progressive of the Spanish society that wants to shake off the pessimism and the desire to see the country move forward”, he shoots.
The letter of Pedro Sánchez, his ministers
