Sánchez launches the economy against Feijóo in his last attempt to rebound before the elections: "Now we have a good track"

The images of Holy Week, with full bars and restaurants, as well as crowded beaches, caused satisfaction in the Government. You look at reality through that side of the glass, because on the other, food prices do not give families a break, and in March they registered a rise of 16.5%. In the Executive, despite the fact that it is a great storm cloud, they believe that they have managed to bend the curve of food inflation. That in April the data will be better and that the economic horizon begins to clear of dark clouds. For this reason, in the short term Moncloa rules out a new package of measures. This, added to the agreement in the Housing Law with ERC and Bildu, which has unblocked it, and the announcement to put 50,000 Sareb homes up for “affordable” rent have installed euphoria in La Moncloa: “We will continue, now We have a good lane.”

Sánchez will emphasize today in his appearance in Congress on these two issues: economy-employment and housing. They are two key levers to reactivate the PSOE in the face of the municipal and regional elections of 28-M. Transfer optimism to their own, but also to the public. And for that, it is key to have the focus, like today, to launch the messages that appear on the news and in the media.

This feeling of optimism and change in trend was expressed by Sánchez in a recent act: «Hotels full, terraces to overflowing, beaches to the flag, optimism in the streets. A Spain with social peace and economic growth». In La Moncloa they consider that the data and images of the summer will be even better, so that feeling is an inertia that can benefit them. “Everything looks good,” they point out in the presidential complex.

The perception in the Executive is that the tables are changing. And that, perhaps, finally, that favorable wind that Pedro Sánchez and his ministers long for, may begin to appear on the horizon. The PP, with the arrival of Alberto Núñez Feijóo to the presidency, saw the economy as the playing field to attack the Government. In fact, he reinforced his economic team with that perspective. Now, in La Moncloa they believe that the tables have turned and that the economic data belie the “sorers of the apocalypse”. “We saw the apocalypse for months, and that falls apart,” they say in La Moncloa. “Despite the difficulties, we have reversed the situation.”

“We are circumventing reforms and high-voltage measures,” they say in the Executive as a result of the agreements reached for the pension reform or the Housing law. Initiatives that Sánchez will exhibit in Congress and will use to confront the PP. The Government describes the PP's housing policies and initiatives as “failed proposals” and rejects the State pact offered by Feijóo, recalling that in 2018 the then Minister of Public Works, José Luis Ábalos, offered the groups a State pact for the function housing and the PP rejected it.

“The image given by the Government is that we are advancing”. Despite the rise in prices, an issue that fully affects the shopping basket of families and the most vulnerable people, the Prime Minister's team defines the economic situation as “good”.

IMF forecast

In the Government they have been sheltering in the future forecasts of international organizations to counteract the bad economic data of past months. This week, the IMF forecast that the Spanish economy will grow 1.5% this year, four tenths more than previously projected, but reduced the expected growth for 2024 by four tenths, to 2%.. “Indicator after indicator today the data fortunately smiles at Spain and leaves those doomsayers without arguments”, is the message in La Moncloa in the face of criticism that is based on the escalation of the shopping basket.

The analysis that they make in the Government and in Ferraz for the coming months is as follows: «Despite the uncertainty and the past months, we are holding our own more or less well at this point.. We move between 26% and 28%. The PP has a sawtooth trajectory ». In the Executive branch, the change in speech that Feijóo carried out this week regarding the 28-M elections did not go unnoticed: if he previously said that the municipal and regional elections were “the true motion of censure” in the Government, last week his own confirmed who believes that Sánchez's PSOE “will hold out better” on 28-M than in general.

«The PP changes its perspective and its discourse. We have to stay focused, ”they reflect in the Government. Sheltered from that feeling of comeback, that the shirt button is no longer about to pop, the PSOE have been looking for a counterattack for weeks, questioning Feijóo's leadership. They sow doubts about whether after 28-M it will be he who leads the PP or it will be Ayuso. A message that they release from time to time. “The problem is him, who does not pull,” say government sources. “His brand is going to subtract from the PP. He has been going from more to less, it is increasingly difficult to cover up his fall in valuation.”