Political change coming in Spain and Austria. The Iberian country, where he has voted 4 times in the last 4 yearsfinally found a way out: Pedro Sanchez's socialists, who had already won the April elections but had failed to form a government majority, emerged slightly weakened from last November's session but on the other hand convinced Unidas Podemos, the party of Pablo Iglesias, to form a centre-left executive, avoiding the umpteenth early elections which would have done nothing but consolidate the comeback of the right, in particular the xenophobic and "Salvinian" one of Vox.
The agreement had already been reached a few weeks ago, but to obtain the trust (which will be voted on Tuesday) the arithmetic certainty was still lacking, which arrived on January 2 when the Erc party, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia), decided to abstain from voting for the appointment of the prime minister: their non-participation in the vote of confidence in the Spanish Chamber of Deputies will therefore allow Pedro Sánchez to take office on January 7th.
ERC's decision, approved with 96,4% of the preferences of the party's national council, will allow the investiture of the leader of the PSOE, the leading party in the Spanish elections of last November 10 with 28% of the votes. However, the agreement between the ERC and the PSOE includes the establishment, within five days of Sánchez's inauguration, of a negotiating table "on the political conflict in Catalonia between the central government and the Generalitat". So the government is leaving, but with the sword of Damocles of the Catalan hot potato.
Even more innovative is the agreement reached in Austria, where three months after the vote an agreement was reached for the new government: it will still be led by the popular leader Sebastian Kurz, triumphant with over 37% of the votes, but with a different ally from the populist right-wing Fpö. This time, and with no small surprise, the young centre-right politician has chosen to veer a little to the left, at least on environmental issues which are at the center of all international agendas: he therefore allies himself with Werner Kogler's Greens, strong in a 13,9% at the polls.
It is an abrupt change of course for Kurz, who abandons the partners of the previous executive, the populist right-wing Fpö, overwhelmed and penalized in the polls by Ibizagate and other minor scandals, to ally with a left-wing environmentalist party with which the points of contact did not seem many, at least initially. The umpteenth demonstration of the chameleonic pragmatism of the young chancellor - 33 years old - who thus regains the "scepter" of youngest head of government in Europe.
From a purely mathematical point of view the alliance has the numbers to last: together the Övp and the Greens have 97 seats out of a total of 183 in Parliament. It is more complex for the two parties to share the government programme, the details of which were illustrated in the afternoon; which also explains the long and "not easy" negotiations, as Kurz himself declared when announcing the agreement. But "it is possible to protect both borders and the environment", the young leader cut short, summarizing the key to the agreement with a sort of slogan.
