President Pedro Sanchez will announce next Tuesday a new norm that will force the Executive to render accounts of the commitments made and to report how many have been fulfilled. The obligation will come into effect one year after the 2023 general elections, so if there is a change in Moncloa, the requirement will be transferred to Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
The Secretary General of the Presidency of the Government, Francisco Martin Aguirre, held a meeting with journalists this Thursday at Moncloa where he advanced this initiative. He did it during the presentation of the Accountability report of the Government of Spain of the last semester.
Although Martín Aguirre has not specified what “the norm” will consist of, according to his own words, he has slipped that the objective would be to do it “in all public Administrations”. “The goal is for governments they have to be obliged to explain to the citizens how they are evolving, and that it is the citizens who reach their own conclusions”, he added.
The general secretary has preferred not to give more details out of “prudence”, because “the formal steps of processing any regulation with that objective must be produced”. That role will remain for Pedro Sánchez, who will detail it next Tuesday when he appears to publicly share the results of the report, which from then on will be available on the Moncloa website.
When asked if this is something that has been agreed with the PP, since it could affect it if it reaches the Government, Martín Aguirre has said that “I would not understand that there could be another party that did not share it”. That is to say, they have not consulted it, but they do not believe that the popular ones are going to oppose it.
Agreements and speeches
Since Sánchez revalidated his position at Moncloa in 2020, the Executive has carried out the program Fulfilling, that controls the promises made. The commitments that are acquired in pacts with other parties or in announcements included in a inauguration speech, they are registered by a team dedicated to it and their status is reported every six months. That team is in the Transparency department.
On that list you can enter from the reform of the crime of sedition, to the Trans Law or the imposition of new taxes.
According to preliminary results, as of December 22, 2022, the Executive has acquired a total of 1,513 commitments since the legislature began -32 of them new in 2022-, of which has met 66.7%.
In terms of compliance, the promises made in public statements (73.9%), those of the investiture speech (72.8%) and the agreements reached for the coalition government between PSOE and the United States take the cake. We can (68.7%). The agreements reached with other parties for the investiture have a worse ratio (57.8%).
It is striking that, despite the presence of Unidas Podemos in the Government, when the commitments by topic are analyzed, the one with the highest percentage is that of “Defense modernization and military support”, by 84%. In any case, these are general data that are difficult to control. It will be from Tuesday when the details of each promise and their situation can be known.
