The elected leader of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, called Mariano Rajoy yesterday to guarantee his support in the event of a call for an independence referendum in Catalonia. Sánchez and the Executive chief had a pending conversation since on May 21st Sánchez won the primaries. The dialogue took place yesterday and it is the first that both leaders have held - at least the first that has become public - since the meeting held on August 29th, 2016 in the framework of the contacts for the investiture of the PP leader.

It was the socialist leader who, according to government sources, called Rajoy, who a day after Sanchez's victory sent him a message asking to talk to him when he had ´a minute´. Socialist sources said that Sánchez received "hundreds of messages" after his triumph and that yesterday's call to Rajoy is not the answer to that message.

The President had already made public his intention to have that talk, although last Monday he said that he had not wanted to do it earlier so as not to "disturb" the socialist leader.

However it may be, in yesterday's conversation Sánchez assured Rajoy that the PSOE will defend legality and the Constitution against any attempt to break it. The two parties reported in the same terms of the content of the call: the conversation was "fluid and normal" and the two leaders agreed to continue talking shortly.

Sanchez's defense of a "multinational State" had spread concern along the Government, even if it was within the framework of the Constitution. The spokesman, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, asked him on Friday to clarify his position. The new socialist spokesman in the Congress, José Luis Ábalos, did it yesterday: as in the previous stage of Sánchez as the leader of the PSOE, the position will "always" be to respect law and legality, the Valencian congressman said.

The vice-president of the Government, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, acknowledged feeling "calmed down" thanks to the words of Ábalos, and then she attacked the President of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, who was harmed by his electoral "tacticism".

Based on the assurance that there will be no referendum - because it does not fit in the Constitution or in international law, she said - the Vice-President showed a "feeling" that, in her opinion, begins to spread. The "feeling" that, with the "ad strategy", Puigdemont "is looking for the reaction of all the others to feed a victimhood that no longer works". A "pre-election climate" is being created on the exploitation of a process that "has no way out".

Meanwhile, the president of the Circle of Entrepreneurs, Javier Vega de Seoane, predicted yesterday that Rajoy would have "no other choice" than resorting to the Mossos d'Esquadra to remove the ballot boxes if he wants to prevent another referendum such as that of 2014.

For Seoane, it is no longer just "a matter of political will", because, "if the law is not respected", Rajoy's government would be "the laughingstock".

"If some can follow the law, why should not the others do it? It would be a disaster. If this continues on this path, there will be no option but to enforce the law with all the means that the State has", he warned.