Sanchez Can Survive Anything Except Actually Governing
Three years without a budget, a housing crisis, and a government consumed by coalition survival. Erick Serrano on Spain's political endurance problem.
Spain Deserves a Government That Governs, Not Just Survives
Sanchez has mastered political survival at the cost of actual governance.
🔹 Context: Pedro Sanchez has governed Spain without a budget since 2023. His coalition — held together by parliamentary arithmetic more than political vision — has extended the 2023 budget for a third consecutive year. By any normal standard, this is a government running on fumes.
🔹 My Read on This: I want to be fair to Sanchez here, because the political terrain he navigates is genuinely difficult. He governs without a stable majority. He depends on Catalan pro-independence parties whose price keeps rising. He needs the Basque nationalists, Sumar, and occasionally Bildu — all with incompatible demands — to survive any given vote.
That is not an excuse. It is context.
What strikes me watching the last six months is how much energy the government spends on survival — managing votes, negotiating deals, patching coalitions — and how little on actually governing. The amnesty law for Catalan independence leaders consumed a year of political capital. What did ordinary Spaniards get in exchange? Not a budget. Not a housing reform. Not a serious plan on migration.
🔹 What Others Miss: The housing crisis in Spain is becoming generational. Young people between 25 and 35 in Madrid and Barcelona are spending 60 to 70 percent of their income on rent. That is not a statistic. That is a generation choosing not to have children, not to stay in cities, not to build the life their parents built at the same age. I talk to people in their early thirties who are genuinely considering leaving Spain — not for adventure, but because they cannot see a future there.
That crisis deserves a government at full operational capacity. Instead, we have one consumed by constitutional politics and coalition survival.
🔹 The Real Issue: Sanchez has become expert at political endurance. Every time he seemed finished he survived. But surviving is not governing. And the country needs the latter, urgently.
🔹 What I Expect: Sanchez will finish his term. He is too skilled a political operator to fall before 2027. But Spain will arrive at those elections with the same unresolved problems it had in 2023 — housing, migration, a constitutional model nobody agrees on — plus three more years of accumulated frustration.
📌 EPM Analysis: Political survival is a skill. It is just not the one Spain needs most right now.
✍️ Erick Serrano | erickprometeomedia.com
🔹 Context: Pedro Sanchez's government is governing Spain for the third consecutive year without an approved budget. The 2023 budget — already two years expired — has been extended again. This is not a technicality. It is a governance failure with direct consequences for public services, infrastructure, and fiscal credibility.
🔹 My Read on This: There is a version of this story that blames Spain's fractured parliament. And yes, building a majority in a 350-seat chamber with a dozen parties is genuinely hard. But Sanchez did not inherit this fragmentation — he cultivated it. He needed the pro-independence parties, so he traded things the constitution probably should not allow trading.
The amnesty law was the price. There will be others.
What I find most revealing is the government's communication strategy when things go wrong. Every scandal is framed as a right-wing judicial conspiracy. Every budget failure is blamed on opposition obstructionism. Every constitutional tension is presented as democracy under attack. Eventually voters notice.
🔹 What Others Miss: Spain's judiciary has spent two years investigating figures connected to the ruling coalition — not because judges are partisan, but because there are actual cases with actual evidence. The Koldo case involves millions in commissions. The Puigdemont situation is a live constitutional crisis. These are not inventions of the right-wing press.
🔹 The Real Issue: Spain needs a government capable of passing a budget, reforming housing, managing its borders, and presenting a coherent position in Brussels. It has, instead, a government focused almost entirely on surviving to the next vote.
🔹 What I Expect: Sanchez will serve out his term. The problems — housing, migration, constitutional ambiguity — will arrive at the 2027 elections in worse shape than today.
📌 EPM Analysis: The political skill that keeps Sanchez in power is the same skill that prevents him from using it.
✍️ Erick Serrano | erickprometeomedia.com
Sanchez puede sobrevivir a todo menos a gobernar de verdad
Tres anos sin presupuesto y un gobierno consumido por la supervivencia de coalicion. Erick Serrano sobre el problema de la resistencia politica espanola.
Espana merece un gobierno que gobierne, no solo que sobreviva
Sanchez ha dominado la supervivencia politica a costa de la gobernanza real. Erick Serrano sobre la paralisis presupuestaria de Espana.
🔹 Contexto: Pedro Sanchez lleva gobernando Espana sin un presupuesto aprobado desde 2023. Su coalicion ha prorrogado los presupuestos de 2023 por tercer ano consecutivo. En cualquier estandar normal, esto es un gobierno funcionando con los depositos vacios.
🔹 Mi lectura: Lo que me llama la atencion observando los ultimos seis meses es cuanta energia gasta el gobierno en sobrevivir y cuan poco en gobernar de verdad. La ley de amnistia para los lideres independentistas catalanes consumio un ano de capital politico. Que obtuvieron los espanoles normales a cambio? No un presupuesto. No una reforma de la vivienda. No un plan serio sobre migracion.
🔹 Lo que nadie ve: La crisis de vivienda en Espana se esta volviendo generacional. Los jovenes de entre 25 y 35 anos en Madrid y Barcelona gastan entre el 60 y el 70% de sus ingresos en alquiler. No es una estadistica. Es una generacion que decide no tener hijos, no quedarse en las ciudades, no construir la vida que sus padres construyeron a la misma edad.
🔹 Lo que espero: Sanchez terminara su mandato. Es demasiado habil politicamente para caer antes de 2027. Pero Espana llegara a esas elecciones con los mismos problemas sin resolver que tenia en 2023 mas tres anos de frustracion acumulada.
📌 Analisis EPM: La supervivencia politica es una habilidad. Simplemente no es la que Espana mas necesita ahora mismo.
✍️ Erick Serrano | erickprometeomedia.com
🔹 Contexto: El gobierno de Pedro Sanchez lleva tres anos consecutivos sin un presupuesto aprobado. Los presupuestos de 2023 se han prorrogado de nuevo. Esto no es un tecnicismo. Es un fallo de gobernanza con consecuencias directas para los servicios publicos y la credibilidad fiscal del pais.
🔹 Mi lectura: Hay una version de esta historia que culpa al fragmentado parlamento espanol. Pero Sanchez no heredo esta fragmentacion — la cultivo. Necesitaba a los partidos independentistas, asi que comercio con cosas que la constitucion probablemente no deberia permitir comerciar.
La ley de amnistia fue el precio. Habra otros.
🔹 Lo que nadie ve: La judicatura espanola lleva dos anos investigando figuras vinculadas a la coalicion gobernante — no porque los jueces sean partidistas, sino porque hay casos reales con evidencia real. El caso Koldo implica millones en comisiones. La situacion Puigdemont es una crisis constitucional en curso.
🔹 Lo que espero: Sanchez cumplira su mandato. Los problemas llegaran a las elecciones de 2027 en peor estado que hoy.
📌 Analisis EPM: La habilidad politica que mantiene a Sanchez en el poder es la misma que le impide usarlo.
✍️ Erick Serrano | erickprometeomedia.com
