The reform of ‘only yes is yes’: the monotheme that floods everything

This week the Government made official the increase in the minimum interprofessional wage to 1,080 euros, a revaluation of almost 47% compared to the 735 at the beginning of the legislature. The trans law and the new abortion law were also approved in Congress, two of the star measures of the Executive in terms of Equality. In addition, Eurostat confirmed Spain as the large eurozone economy that best weathered an economic situation that seems to banish the ghost of recession for good. And the aid of 200 euros for vulnerable families came into effect. None of these issues managed to find a place in a political agenda monopolized by the ‘only yes is yes’ reform.

To the crisis derived from the penal reductions to hundreds of sexual offenders since last November is now added the frontal clash between the coalition partners on account of a legal reform that confronts the PSOE and Unidas Podemos. A spiral from which the Government can hardly escape to impose another agenda in the public discussion. In Moncloa they have already made several attempts to focus on other issues, such as the revaluation of pensions to 8.5% or, more recently, the debate on health cuts on account of the protests against Isabel Díaz Ayuso. With little success.

At the press conference last Monday at the Socialist headquarters on Calle Ferraz, the first intervention by the Deputy Secretary General, María Jesús Montero, dealt almost exclusively with those protests against the Madrid president and the Executive’s efforts to reinforce public health. . An attempt to change the focus that collided with the questions from journalists: practically all of them revolved around the controversial norm and the clash between the two wings of the Executive.

The verification that, whatever the Government does, the day-to-day of politics in our country will be marked by the so-called “undesired effects” of the regulation, a conclusion that has been reached for weeks in Moncloa, It has pushed Pedro Sánchez to order that a resolution be carried out as quickly as possible that manages to save the roadmap designed towards the municipal and regional ones. Following this diagnosis, the lack of consensus between Justice and Equality led to a standoff from the Socialists, who ended up unilaterally presenting their reform proposal without letting more time pass.

The slogan now is to speed up the parliamentary procedures for the proposed law as much as possible, and hence the priority in Moncloa is to urgently plug the crisis with the approval of the reform and not so much whether or not that reform has the coalition partners and even with allies in Congress. “This must be closed because it is an absolutely losing discussion for the left”, they acknowledge in the socialist wing of the Executive, where they do not fully understand that Podemos has decided to flag an issue that, in their opinion, mainly wears them out for be the promoters of the law from the Ministry of Equality.

Although determined to fight to the end the reform of the law proposed by the PSOE, in United We Can they also admit that the law of ‘only yes is yes’ barely leaves them room to talk about other things. “We are unable to place other issues”, they resigned themselves in the confederal space last Thursday. Precisely that day, Podemos managed to get his proposal to the government partner to try to solve the rise in food prices through a bonus similar to the one applied to fuel, although in a higher percentage, of 14, 4% to return the prices of a certain basic basket to the pre-war level.

That day the new abortion law and the trans law were also definitively approved in Congress, one of the star regulations of the Ministry of Equality and which, despite the noise that its parliamentary process caused throughout last year, hardly generated information tension this week. In the halls of Congress, journalists and politicians are blatantly fed up with the media loop that is imposing the reform of this law.

From United We Can they have also tried insistently in recent weeks to divert the media focus to other issues, with proposals such as food discounts. Already in January, the formation directed by Ione Belarra had launched a proposal to the PSOE to cap food prices and stop the inflationary escalation of these basic necessities through state intervention.

In the first week of February, the second vice president of the Government launched a measure to limit increases in mortgage payments. “It is not common sense that today a mortgage of 150,000 euros has increased the fee by 258 euros while the entities are having absolutely extraordinary benefits,” said Díaz to demand that the Government intervene in the market so that the installments of the mortgages to be at the levels of July 2022, before the ECB started raising rates.

The debate on the ‘only yes is yes’ has managed to eclipse another of the issues that until the beginning of this year raised more questions in the press conferences of the different actors that make up the space to the left of the PSOE, the announcement of the candidacy of the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, for the next elections.

In the environment of the vice president, they flatly rule out that the crisis due to the ‘only yes is yes’ has delayed the plans for the launch of Sumar, the platform with which it intends to bring together the different progressive formations, both national and regional. In principle, the launch of the project and the announcement of the candidacy were planned for mid-February, although it is a fact that it will finally last until March.

From Sumar they see it as essential to complete the so-called “listening process”, the tour of acts with different sectors and throughout the different territories, to give shape to the platform, and until that is finished, they rule out advancing scenarios and assume that the announcement will be for example, in the middle of the parliamentary debate on the law if there is no prior agreement between the parts of the Government.

Meanwhile, the second vice president is talking to the different parties with which she intends to count, Podemos among them. Yolanda Díaz acknowledged this Friday that conversations are taking place between Sumar and groups such as Más País, Compromís or Izquierda Unida, although sources around her stress that independent profiles will also be of great importance in the project that is agreed. This announcement by Díaz has come just hours after Podemos has once again asked the vice president for speed. “We’re late,” said the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, when asked about the matter.

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