“As soon as possible”. The PSOE wants Pedro Sánchez's investiture to be resolved imminently and all clues point to this being the case. The signing of the pact with Yolanda Díaz precipitated the movements and, since then, everything has accelerated with the date set for the week of November 6 to 10. And there is a detail that can help rule out a date and round out the speculation: Felipe VI's state trip to Denmark.. The relevance of the monarch's presence in Spain is not trivial, since the president of Congress, Francina Armengol, must go to Zarzuela to report the result of the debate. And that limits the options if everything goes as they want in Ferraz and the most optimistic forecasts come true..

The monarch will be in the Scandinavian country between Monday, November 6 and Wednesday, November 8, which places November 9 as a possible date for a successful vote.. It is true that it is a holiday in the capital of Madrid, on the day of the Virgin of Almudena, but it is a “surmountable” obstacle, say Congress sources.. This scenario would leave the 8th for the first day of the debate, with Sánchez defending his project to vote in the second session. And it is assumed that the socialist leader would achieve the hypothetical investiture in the first vote, since the support of the nationalist and independence parties with which he negotiates allows him to achieve the absolute majority necessary in the first instance..

This calendar also allows there to be no collisions between a hypothetical plenary session of Congress and the one set by the Senate for November 7.. The Upper House, with the absolute majority of the PP, has set for next Tuesday a control session of the Executive that will serve to inaugurate the inspection of the Government. It will be a new chapter of the popular strategy of taking advantage of that primacy in the Senate to erode Pedro Sánchez. Even in the week in which the socialists want to hold the investiture, despite the fact that the limit is still far away. On November 27, if there is no agreement, the Cortes are dissolved and elections are called for January 14.

“As of today there is nothing,” Ferraz sources explained on Monday. And although that remains the official message, the conversations in the halls of Congress during Princess Leonor's swearing-in were optimistic.. The signing of the agreement with Yolanda Díaz was followed by the federal committee on Saturday, a loud and clear message in favor of the amnesty. And 48 hours later, the photo of Santos Cerdán with Carles Puigdemont, which was expected when the agreement with Junts was advanced. There are no clues about the state of the talks, due to that law of silence that both the PSOE and its potential partners decreed, but the feeling is that the investiture is getting closer..

Socialist and Congress sources explain that it is not necessary for the PSOE's consultation with the militancy to end to set a date for the debate. The vote, to which 172,000 members are called, ends on November 4 and the results will be known the next day. But first, this Friday the 3rd, there is the Congress Board and the Board of Spokespersons. This agenda makes parliamentary work compatible with the announcement of a date by Francina Armengol, after agreeing on it with Pedro Sánchez. And the registration of the amnesty law is also planned on this calendar, which, according to the socialists, is a request from 56 deputies who are willing to assume. This fifty or so deputies are made up of Sumar, ERC, Junts, EH Bildu, the PNV and BNG, according to PSOE accounts..

“The pact is made”

The PSOE, internally, sees that “the pact is made”, after the Secretary of Organization, Santos Cerdán, met publicly on Monday with Puigdemont in Brussels. Officially, the socialist leadership is still keeping its back and insists that they are “closing the agreement” with Junts, which includes an amnesty law. Even with this prevention, the feeling they convey is that it is only about the “details” to present the final balance of the negotiation.. Cerdán himself discussed the dates of the investiture with Puigdemont, which also denotes that the conversations have culminated.

The socialists already point out that the text of the law that will amnesty crimes related to the events of the process will be made public in the coming days. They are willing to register it in Congress before the days are set for Sánchez to submit to the confidence of the Chamber. Junts, which had demanded an advance payment, would only accept that it be presented when, they reiterate in the PSOE, everything “is closed”. The socialists are also open to making it an initiative with the rest of the groups that defend the amnesty: ERC, Bildu, PNV and BNG. Contacts are being hurried with them during these hours, since Sánchez, in addition to the support of Sumar and JxCAT, needs all these votes to achieve the investiture.

“We are trying to close everything with everyone,” they say.. Although the day was focused on Princess Leonor, the visit of the number three of the PSOE to Puigdemont, this Monday, just a few hours before this important institutional event, has placed that photograph and the amnesty at the center of the debate. Felipe González has made his rejection known. Would you have lent yourself? “Who do you take me for,” he responded to journalists. And Emiliano García-Page has also been critical, predicting “more serious photos in the future”. “I am concerned about the situation that Spain is experiencing,” he added.

The impact of the photo of Santos Cerdán with the former president of the Generalitat, a fugitive from Spanish Justice, does not hide the unanimity in the PSOE and the PP that there will be an investiture next week. Although the final staging of the pact with Junts is pending, it is not expected that there will be a similar image with Pedro Sánchez. “It is not contemplated, it has not been a topic of debate,” say the socialists. The PSOE has tried to downplay the fact that in the room where the head of Organization met with Puigdemont there was a painting of 1-O where some young people appear with a ballot box. A fact that has generated controversy, despite the fact that the photo distributed by the socialists was framed so that the ballot box did not appear. “It's his office and we go there, for us it doesn't have the greatest importance,” they point out.