Ruth del Moral |
Madrid (EFE).- The XIV Legislature, that of the first coalition government in Spain, ends with a balance of more than a hundred laws approved, almost all of them with tight majorities, tough negotiations and some notorious clashes between the two partners of the Executive.
These laws include three General State Budgets (2021-2022-2023), states of alarm due to the pandemic, a labor reform -approved thanks to an erroneous vote by the PP-, more than a dozen aid decrees due to covid , the eruption of the La Palma volcano, and the war in Ukraine, through the creation of new taxes, the repeal of the crime of sedition, a new Housing law, Democratic Memory or the regulation of Euthanasia, among others rules.
In order to carry out the 118 laws, including organic, ordinary and royal decree laws, the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has had to negotiate not only with Unidas Podemos, but also with the Catalan and Basque nationalist and pro-independence parties that have supported him in these almost four years.
From the Audiovisual Law to that of the only yes is yes
There has not always been an agreement within the Executive; A year ago, in June 2022, the first division of the vote took place on an important regulation, the Audiovisual Law, which went ahead thanks to the support of the PNV and the abstention of the PP. Unidas Podemos did not support it, it abstained.
Since then, there have been several occasions in which the coalition partners have had opposing positions, although none has left them as close to breaking as the last one, the reform of the controversial law for the comprehensive guarantee of sexual freedom, the law of only yes is yes.
The Socialists promoted this reform after the controversy over the numerous reductions in sentences for sexual offenders that were decided in application of the law and, given the refusal of the Ministry of Equality, United We Can and several of their investiture partners, they had to support themselves. in the PP to raise the penalties for sexual assaults with violence and intimidation again and recover the forks of the previous Penal Code.
Since March 2019 and that distant first plenary session of Congress convened with Spain confined and in a state of alarm, debates over laws such as Housing, which repealed the crime of sedition and reformed embezzlement, pensions or new Trans, LGTBI and animal welfare laws have been produced in an environment of growing parliamentary tension.
Low unanimity in Congress
With this fragmentation in the Government and Parliament, it is not surprising that in this legislature there have been few laws approved unanimously, something that was only achieved in the first covid decrees and that was lost as the pandemic and the parties subsided. They hardened their positions.
Close to that unanimity were the suppression of the vote requested for Spaniards living abroad -approved with the support of the entire Lower House except for an abstention from the BNG- or the validation of the decree of measures to alleviate the damage caused by the storm ” Filomena”, which received 339 yeses.
In general, the PP, Vox and Cs have made a common front against what they have considered transfers to the Catalan independentists and Bildu, since after the pardons for the prisoners of the process, the repeal of the crime of sedition arrived at the end of 2022 and with it the blowing up the bridge that PSOE and PP seemed to have built to renew the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ).
And it is that since in March 2021 the Government approved its first law in Congress, that of euthanasia, supported by 202 deputies and with the votes against the PP and Vox, the two big parties have almost always voted differently .pp
However, there have been some laws with favorable votes from the PP, such as the law for the comprehensive protection of children and adolescents against violence, the law for the protection of orphans who are victims of gender violence, the law for the revaluation of pensions, the validation of the decree of urgent measures regarding remuneration in the public sector or the law for the prevention of Food Waste.
adjusted votes
Many have been the adjusted votes or that have been agreed “in extremis”. Even some regulations were saved by mistake, such as the labor reform, which was going to be repealed with the surprise votes of the two UPN deputies -they had decided to go against the slogan of the party leadership- but the error in the telematic vote of the deputy of the PP Alberto Casero validated it.
Also the decree of the European funds went ahead with the abstention of Vox after ERC voted against together with the PP and Cs.
Another vote with suspense (170 yeses compared to 169 noes) was the one that regulated the stability of the interim, and that ERC only supported at the last moment.