The Board of Spokespersons of the Congress has agreed to bring forward to September 3 the appearance requested by the Government for President Pedro Sánchez to report in a monographic Plenary on the crisis in Ceuta, according to various parliamentary sources indicated to Europa Press.
The Executive had registered this Wednesday the formal request for appearance, initially proposing to the groups September 9, coinciding with the first Plenary of the new session period.
However, in the meeting of the Board of Spokespersons, several groups, including partners of the Government, warned that this date was too late. Furthermore, for the 9th, the inclusion in the agenda of an intervention by the third vice president and minister for Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, in the Plenary of the Chamber had already been considered.
Finally, it has been set that Sánchez will appear next Wednesday, September 3, at 9:00 a.m., in a plenary session.
Pressures to bring forward the date
The decision was made a few hours before the Permanent Deputation votes on the request from the PP for Sánchez to urgently attend Congress on one of the remaining days of August, an initiative that some parliamentary allies of the Executive were considering supporting.
The PNV, which had already defended on Tuesday that the president should be the first to offer explanations about this crisis and not limit himself to the interventions of the ministers, conveyed in the Board that the appearance should be held "immediately," without waiting for the first ordinary Plenary of Congress, although without altering the ministerial appearances already scheduled for the coming days, according to nationalist sources.
Also, the spokesperson for Podemos, Ione Belarra, has considered it "regrettable" that the Government initially proposed September 9, "with all the calm in the world" despite the seriousness of the humanitarian situation.
"It is evident that, regardless of the party you vote for, everyone in Spain has seen that it was necessary for the president of the Government to interrupt his vacation to address this crisis, something that has not happened --she said at a press conference--. Finally, they have committed to him appearing on September 3. It is not enough, evidently, but I think it is better than on the 9th."
For her part, the spokesperson for the PP, Ester Muñoz, attributes the advancement of the date to the "pressure" exerted by her party, which since the beginning of August had been demanding the presence of the head of the Executive in the Chamber. As she has pointed out, "several parliamentary groups were willing to support the request for Sánchez's appearance before the ordinary session period, and that has made them have to rectify and say that he is coming on September 3."