Sánchez invested as prime minister: amnesty and the cost of the pact

Sánchez leads Spain with amnesty as a bargaining chip

How much does a government cost? The one sealed on 16 November 2023 has an identifiable price: an amnesty law. That day the King signed the Royal Decree appointing Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón as prime minister, after Congress gave him its confidence by absolute majority in the first vote. The candidate had been proposed to the speaker of the lower house on 3 October, trinc consultations with representatives of parliamentary groups. The entire procedure fits into two articles of the Constitution: 99 and 62. The debate is not about the procedure. It is about the bill.

What the Royal Decree signed by the King actually says

The official text recalls that the appointment is made "under the provisions of Article 62 of the Spanish Constitution," and that the candidate's proposal to Congress —the phase governed by Article 99— took place on 3 October, after the mandatory consultations. Once the investiture session had ended, the speaker of Congress went to the Palacio de La Zarzuela to inform the King of the election. The candidate had obtained the lower house's confidence by absolute majority in the first vote. The constitutional mechanics allow no reply. What those same articles allow to be put inside them is another matter.

Amnesty: the explicit price of the deal

In the most repeated analysis, the amnesty law is the toll paid for the votes that sustain the investiture. There is a legal nuance worth keeping in mind: the amnesty was registered by the Socialist group in Congress, not by the caretaker government, which cannot promote certain initiatives. The distinction matters a great deal technically and almost nothing in the public narrative. The pro-independence parties changed their position in exchange for a text that erases open cases. For some, it is proof that Spain is selling itself; for others, proof that it negotiates like any other country. The verifiable fact is that the deal exists and that its price has a name.

The economic cost: debt, pensions and a printing press at its limit

Here the matter becomes accounting. The most repeated warning is not political but a balance-sheet one: pensions are being paid with borrowed money, and the sustainability of that scheme depends on someone continuing to buy debt. It is argued that the ECB's printing press is at its limit and that the parliamentary term starts with macroeconomic headwinds. Another strand looks further ahead, to a global financial collapse that would arrive regardless of who signs the decrees. And a third adds an uncomfortable angle: anyone who collects a public paycheck enjoys the so-called Cantillon effect, because new money enters the economy there before prices rise. The full calculation, item by item, produces a striking result. Sometimes it is told as an alibi and others as an accusation.

Ferraz: protests, riot gear and an unverified coincidence

The gatherings outside the Socialist headquarters on Calle Ferraz set the tone for the trinc weeks. The most widely circulated claim in that stretch is also the hardest to verify, and it must be treated for what it is: that the government would have acquired 8,000 canisters of tear gas of the latest generation on the same day the protests began. The timing is striking; solid proof, for now, is nowhere to be found. It could have been a routine stock replenishment and it could not have been. Without a document to support it, suspicion remains suspicion, however often it is repeated to exhaustion.

The other half of the debate: would the PP have done the same?

One part of the analysis shifts the focus from the winner to the alternative. The argument: the PP already governed with restrictive measures during the pandemic, with fines of up to 60,000 euros for anyone who refused vaccination, and would have made a deal with whomever it took to take the seat. That camp's conclusion is bitter: it makes no difference who signs. For others, the equivalence is an alibi that whitewashes what is happening. What is notable is that both criticisms coexist without cancelling each other out, and that much of the discontent is not ideological but about governance: a sense of paralysis, permanent friction and elections every few months.

Monarchy or republic: the dispute that returns with every investiture

Every appointment reopens the same underlying rift. One strand calls for a referendum on the form of the state without waiting for anything else, even though the result is unpredictable. Another responds with the technical argument: the signing of the Royal Decree is a regulated act, the King does not decide, and whoever governs is whoever wins the elections. Legal truth and political truth rarely coincide, and that gap feeds the discussion as much as any concrete measure.

In the end, the country described in this part of the analysis is not the one of the investiture: it is the one of packed café terraces, Black Friday and the league match, while a few fight over the narrative. The Government has already been appointed. Amnesty, as of the date of this discussion, was still a proposal. And the price, as almost always, will be paid by someone who was not in the picture.