Feijóo's moderate approach strains the PP's seams at the start of its congress.

Congresses, especially if ideological guidelines are debated, always strain the internal seams of parties. This is even more so the larger the party and the more sensitive it is within. This is true even if the leadership is not in question, so Alberto Núñez Feijóo's biggest headache from now on will not be the rivalry with José Luis Bayo, the Valencian activist who, with a certain desire for notoriety, has announced his intention to challenge him for the PP presidency, but rather ensuring that the new course toward moderation he seems to have set with the appointment of the rapporteurs does not upset the balance between the different family branches.

That's the feeling that's been running through the ranks of the Popular Party (PP) since the national board of directors of the PP officially announced the conclave on Monday, next July, which Feijóo had mentioned to very few people and which surprised most members of his executive committee, who learned of their leader's intentions through a leak to the press.

Once the teams that will be in charge of updating the ideology and statutes were approved, the president of the congress organizing committee, Alfonso Serrano, gave a press conference yesterday at the gates of Génova to silence the initial suspicions, which began on Monday at the presentation of Esperanza Aguirre's book A Liberal in Politics , an event in which the former president of Madrid asked the PP, like Vox, to give the "cultural battle" against the left and in which her disciple, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, called for "uniting and inspiring around Spanish-style liberalism."

Ayuso calls for "inspiring" and "a Spanish-style liberalism" and Aguirre, like Vox, demands a "cultural battle"

Although this advice was read as a warning to navigators from the powerful Madrid PP, which has been relegated to a secondary role, as a mere host of the congress, Serrano wanted to highlight the importance of him, as secretary general of the executive committee chaired by Ayuso, being in charge of organizing the conclave and of Madrid MEP Alma Ezcurra, who heads the Reformismo 21 foundation, created by Feijóo himself at the beginning of his term, acting as coordinator of the political report entrusted to the Andalusian president, Juanma Moreno.

"We're not afraid of debate; we're going to talk about everything," Serrano asserted. While acknowledging that the discussion is still "in its infancy," he added that the congress's reports, which began to be drafted yesterday and will be released in mid-June for membership review, will also address the issues raised by Aguirre and Ayuso, who want the PP to be the "common home" of liberals, conservatives, and Christian Democrats.

Read also Feijóo opts for moderate profiles to set the new direction for the PP after his congress Julio Hurtado

"All battles must be fought and won," Feijóo concluded after a breakfast briefing at the Nueva Economía Fórum, where he introduced the leader of the PP in Castilla-La Mancha, Paco Núñez, with a speech in which he outlined some of the key points of the strategy he proposes for his party, with a staunch defense of the Spain of autonomous regions against "unsupportive separatism," but also against the "recentralizing demagoguery" of Vox and, perhaps, some of the views held by some in the capital. He did not specify the intended audience for this reflection.

The Popular Party leader defends the Spain of autonomous regions against "recentralizing demagoguery."

Be that as it may, Feijóo, who a few days ago said that from the corner in Galicia he saw things differently than from the midfield, yesterday sat next to the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, with whom he has shown closeness since their meeting last week on the San Isidro meadow. “Spain is not a concept up for discussion, much less negotiation. It has been a nation for more than 500 years,” he affirmed, and the rights and duties of its citizens are not for sale in a “Persian market in exchange for power.”