Spain's PSOE skips national budget as its narrative crumbles

PSOE is left without a budget and without a narrative

PSOE has wrapped up its latest mobilization without filling the streets, according to the forum's reading, and the most visible symptom is not in the polls but in a document that does not exist: the General State Budget. The government has not presented it, and part of the economic analysis reads this as a silent surrender. The party remains in the executive and its decrees have gone through, but its ability to set the agenda has cracked. In terms of real power, little has fallen away. In terms of remote control, almost everything.

Why is PSOE not presenting the General State Budget?

The short answer is that there is no majority and that the cost of showing one outweighs the cost of hiding it. The most uncomfortable version being floated —with no documentation to back it up— suggests that a revenue and spending bill would expose the destination of budget lines the official discourse prefers to keep vague. On top of that suspicion sits spending linked to the reception of migrants, an attribution with no evidence behind it. Without a budget, the extension does the dirty work: nobody votes on what never reaches Congress.

The collateral effect is bigger than it seems. A government without new accounts gives up its most powerful economic policy tool, from tax cuts to public investment. The recurring expectation is that the next executive will dismantle much of those chiringuitos —bodies and advisory posts created in the shadow of power— although the same sentence always ends with a "we'll see."

Decrees passed one by one and the session that was meant to be the proof

It passed the decrees separately, one one day, the next the trinc day, and left for the end the full session of Congress that was supposed to work as a show of strength. The packaging did its job: it put everyone before the dilemma of being with the government or against the street. The street did not fill up, according to the forum's reading. The mobilization expected as a social response faded into background noise and the internal reading was bitter. The apparatus holds; the enthusiasm does not.

The regional map: Asturias and Castilla-La Mancha hold on

The territorial picture is uncomfortable. The PP dominates most regions and only Asturias and Castilla-La Mancha remain in left-wing hands, with Catalonia, Navarre and the Basque Country read as places where the state-level brand carries little weight. It is a diagnosis with a catch: regional elections measure management and candidates, not the national agenda. Some warn that the narrative of the end of the left clashes with concrete results, citing Ceuta as an example.

Banking wins whenever PSOE governs

A thesis repeated by economic analysts holds that, paradox or not, every time PSOE reaches government the banking sector comes out better off and the socialist project fades. The bailout of Plus Ultra reappears in that ledger as an example of discretion in the use of public money, with no court ruling to close the matter. The argument discomforts both sides, which is exactly what makes it useful.

In the same package circulates the accusation of pucherazo —electoral fraud— in the 2023 elections. No one has successfully brought it before a court. It is repeated as a slogan, not as a case file.

The projection circulating with more snark than rigor speaks of 65 to 85 seats for PSOE in the next general election. It could be very close. It could be far off. The only verifiable thing, as of today, is a government without a budget, a narrative without epic, and an opposition that has not shown what it would do with either gap.