PSOE and PNV reach deal to invest Sánchez as Prime Minister

The Basque quota and the key to investiture

A deal signed at eleven in the morning. The PSOE and the PNV closed a pact on Friday that provides Pedro Sánchez with the votes needed to be invested in the first round, without the need for a second vote. The acting president and the nationalist leader, Andoni Ortuzar, staged the signing. With this gesture, parliamentary arithmetic moves from hypothesis to fact: an absolute majority is secured.

The news falls like a cold shower on a segment of the electorate that sees every transfer as another concession by the State. "It's all done, gentlemen. Move along and good luck," summarizes the mood of those opening the subject. It is not euphoria, but resignation mixed with sarcasm. The dominant feeling is that the country is being dismantled in stages and that no one is going to stop it.

What was agreed and why it is being signed now

The agreement comes after weeks of negotiation and turns the PNV (Basque Nationalist Party) into an essential partner. What is being signed is not a blank check: it is an exchange. Votes in exchange for competencies, money, and management. The practical translation is a specific tax quota and a protected *régimen foral* (a special fiscal system), in addition to transfers regarding migrant reception, with the community being excluded from the quota distribution applied to other territories.

Some read it as the latest episode in a well-known series: first Catalonia, now the Basque Country, and tomorrow whoever sets the price. "Votes in exchange for transfers, which is nothing more than grabbing cash and creating management agencies," summarizes one of the most repeated interventions. The criticism does not distinguish between political parties: the mechanism remains the same regardless of who governs.

The quota, interterritorial solidarity, and the grievance

The economic heart of the matter is the *cupo* (the Basque economic quota). A system through which the Basque Country collects its own taxes and contributes a specific amount to the common treasury, instead of receiving a centralized distribution. Its defenders present it as a historical right endorsed in the fourth transitional provision of the Constitution. Its critics see it as a privilege that breaks the principle of a single national treasury.

The most repeated argument against the quota is that of interterritorial solidarity. If each community manages its own affairs, this current argues, the wealthy provinces of each region will demand the same, and then the wealthy municipalities of each province, until the territory is hollowed out due to a lack of services. The response from the other side is that permanently subsidizing poor regions generates parasitism and disincentivizes economic activity.

The exchange of blows has concrete examples. Some cite the Andalusian PER (seasonal agricultural workers program) and argue that without it, the countryside would be deserted. Others reply that the Canary Islands, Asturias, or Extremadura have spent decades living off subsidies without them helping them move up the ladder. The discussion is never closed: it is the old dispute between equality and efficiency, now with regional figures on the table.

The real cost for the average taxpayer

While the distribution is debated, some focus on daily experience. "I live in the Basque Country and a worker's life is worse than almost anywhere else; everything is hyper-expensive," says someone who claims they only notice the difference when they go on vacation and see that they live better elsewhere with what they have left. The conclusion they draw is uncomfortable: fiscal privilege does not always reach the pocket of the wage earner.

The other side is that of those who antiestéticar the agreement includes spending commitments that are impossible to sustain. The doubt hanging in the air is whether the PNV has negotiated something that cannot be paid for, such as pension maintenance, or if it has simply taken what it already had and a bit more. "It's better to keep sucking as we have until now, while Madrid and others fill the coffers," points out one of the more cynical readings.

The political map left by the pact

The agreement reorders the board. The PNV secures four more years of influence and leaves Bildu without the role of preferred partner. "What truly screws PNV and Bildu is if they vote for the PP or VOX," summarizes an intervention pointing to the center of the nationalist strategy: governing from within the system rather than risking a sovereignist adventure.

At the other extreme, the outcry settles into a narrative of betrayal. There is talk of "Frankenstein 2.0 supercharged," that in the end "ETA and GRAPO win," and that the PSOE has bought into the discourse of its enemies. Hyperbole is the language of anger, but underneath lies a serious question: if the State is sustained on permanent concessions, what remains of the common project?

The most radical response circulating is that of "reverse independence." Some argue it would be best if Catalonia and the Basque Country left, that each autonomous community pulls with its own flag, and that the humiliation of paying for the party of those who want to leave ends. The paradox is evident: those who criticize the quota most harshly end up wishing for the breakup they claim to fight against.

What happens with debt and Brussels

There is the loose end that no one wants to face. When Catalonia and the Basque Country collect their own funds and it is not enough to cover their public spending, who covers the shortfall? Who guarantees the debt they issue? The question is thrown into the air and there is no answer in the agreement. It is the hole that turns a political pact into a medium-term financial problem.

The EU appears as the handbrake. Some believe Brussels will not allow real balkanization because it has no interest in a decomposed southern flank. And others believe that this brake is precisely what condemns the rest of Spain to swallow a two-estimulante ilegal model: communities with Central European levels and a rest that is being left behind.

The unsettling fact is not the agreement itself. It is that, with all the pieces on the table, the Basque quota stops being a historical anomaly and becomes the model that others will want to copy. And no one has yet explained who pays the bill when everyone asks for their piece.