Pedro Sánchez sees the path clear for the approval of what will be the last Budgets of the legislature after the ERC, PNV and EH Bildu have given up submitting amendments to the whole. Even so, in the Government they are aware that they will have to give in in the negotiation that, beyond regional transfers and investments, will focus on stalled laws, such as housing or the repeal of the ‘gag’. What is cooling in the Executive is the reform of the crime of sedition, despite the commitment reached with ERC at the dialogue table to promote measures for the “dejudicialization” of the Catalan conflict before the end of the year.
Pedro Sánchez, on the crime of sedition: “We have a Penal Code that is not comparable to European democracies”
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The President of the Government reiterated this Friday his intention to modify the Penal Code to homologate it to the rest of European democracies. “This commitment has to be forged in the Cortes and for that we need parliamentary support and, today, it does not seem that we have it. But we have the commitment that if there is a parliamentary majority, we will fulfill an investiture commitment, a personal one of mine, ”said Sánchez, who threw the hot potato at ERC.
The Government has exceeded the absolute majority required to change the Criminal Code on many occasions with its parliamentary allies. But what they consider in the Executive is that the Republicans have difficulties accepting changes in the classification of sedition, which would be as much as assuming that on 1-O crimes were committed in Catalonia. They also point out that changes towards homologation with other European countries would facilitate the return of Carles Puigdemont, who until now has been spared due to the rejection of European orders in countries such as Germany or Belgium.
However, it is assumed that Moncloa and the Government have been working for a long time on a series of legal changes that would go through the reform of sedition (which would mainly benefit leaders such as Marta Rovira) and that would also be directed at dozens of intermediate positions that still face proceedings involving disqualification and prison sentences for crimes of embezzlement related to the process. That was the commitment at the dialogue table meeting in July. Government sources assure that practically no progress has been made.
“Everyone counts things as they see fit, but it is also evident that the same majority that served to carry out an investiture and on some occasion has served to make some Budgets, and the same majority that may end up voting some Budgets , is perfectly capable of voting for a reform of the Penal Code”, was the response that the leader of the ERC, Oriol Junqueras, gave to Sánchez on the same Friday.
Both the Government and the ERC leadership want to publicly separate the so-called dejudicialization of the budget negotiation or other laws in Congress. Those of Oriol Junqueras prefer to focus on non-compliance with investments and transfers as well as housing at a time when they govern alone with significant pressure from Junts, their competitor in the independence movement. “The Republican Left considers it essential that all the actors contribute to generating the necessary conditions of trust to keep the ongoing negotiations alive, with the aim of being able to reach agreements,” stated the statement in a generic way in which the Republicans announced that they would not present amendment to the entire accounts of 2023. .
“We talk about Budgets when we talk about Budgets and it may be that throughout the process ERC wants to introduce some law that is being processed in Congress, I insist law in process,” said the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero. In the Government they take it for granted that the housing law will be one of the main obstacles with the left-wing allies, who demand more ambition in the regulation of rental prices. Government sources admit that “there is little room” given that they want to impose limits only on large holders and “protect” small owners.
The gag law, blocked three years and 28 meetings later
The other demand that the government believes they will meet on the part of their allies is the unblocking of the ‘gag law’. And the more work deadlines stretch, the more pessimism spreads about a possible white smoke. After almost three years of legislature, a total of 28 meetings have been held prior to the presentation that, in theory, should lead to the repeal of the citizen security law established by the PP and against which the left manifested a frontal opposition. In fact, it was always an electoral commitment of Pedro Sánchez and United We Can and it appears as such in the coalition agreement.
The last of the meetings was held this Thursday, although it is expected that they will resume next week. For the first time, the Junts spokesperson was absent from that meeting, but the rest of the attendees were able to verify that the blockade is still intact. “Hopefully next week we can tell something else, but every time we see it blacker. There is no progress, everything has cooled down and there is no perception that the agreement is close”, one of the deputies who attended the meeting tells this newspaper. It is symptomatic that not even the parliamentary groups most openly opposed to the gag law contemplate at this point that it is possible to fulfill the commitment to repeal it, and everyone would welcome a mere reform.
“It is about us being able, at least, to eliminate the most damaging articles, which are the ones that are still stuck”, raises another deputy who explains that during all this time they had conspired to advance in those issues that were more easily approachable to leave for the end the most complex to agree. “But it is that with these matters they do not move at all, and they are the most important”, he points out in reference to the lack of agreement with the PSOE and elements such as rubber balls, crimes of disobedience, lack of respect for authority or the civil responsibility of the organizers of demonstrations in which disturbances occur.
Rubber balls, one of the pitfalls
All these issues are red lines for formations such as EH Bildu and ERC, whose support is essential for any reform of the law to go ahead. In the case of the rubber balls, negotiation sources point out that the PSOE refuses to sign a commitment that implies the prohibition of use or even the substitution of those anti-riot elements for similar ones but that are made of a lesser material. harmful. And they rely for this on reports from the Ministry of the Interior. Government sources maintain that it is “impossible” to give up the use of this type of material and that there are action protocols with different degrees. However, in the Government they declare themselves “optimistic” about the advances in the gag law, although they admit that this is a great stumbling block and also point to a entrenchment regarding hot returns.
A situation similar to that of the sections that have to do with disobedience or lack of respect for authority, which for many groups implies that, in practice, situations of arbitrary sanctions are reproduced in which citizens or even the media communication remain in a situation of total defenselessness against police action that may be unfair. And there is an increasingly widespread fear among the parliamentary groups that support the Government in Congress: that all legislative activity that is not unblocked before the end of the year will inevitably fall into oblivion. Because nobody trusts that the electoral effervescence of 2023 will allow loopholes for any political activity that is not the pure campaign.
