The Executive has managed to pass 47 laws in Congress despite the covid but faces the second half of the legislature with less gunpowder
The coalition government, which on Friday completed its first two years of existence, faces the second half of the legislature with its sights set on the new electoral cycle, which opens on February 13 with the autonomous regions of Castilla y León. A long 31-month electoral campaign that will have its zenith with the general elections of 2023, provided that Pedro Sánchez does not decide to advance them. This journey has been fundamentally marked by the pandemic but, despite this, the Executive has managed to deploy its main social measures – 42.7% of the 1,481 commitments made at the inauguration, according to the president. A figure that also announces that gunpowder is becoming scarce in Moncloa.
PSOE and United We Can have managed to carry out 47 laws and two General State Budgets despite the delicate balance with which Congress granted them the investiture: 167 yeses against 165 noes. Among them, star measures such as the minimum vital income, the increase in the Minimum Interprofessional Salary (SMI), the regulation of euthanasia, the urgent regulations on protection and assistance to victims of gender violence or the comprehensive protection law for childhood and adolescence in the face of violence.
While in the Government they reject the image of extreme fragility and of always being on the wire drawn by both the opposition and its own partners, the coalition is beginning to run out of blows to offer its electorate in the next appointments with the polls.
On the other hand, the rise in the accumulated CPI to 6.7% has worsened all the scenarios and made several of the Government’s social measures obsolete, such as the rise in the SMI. The will of the Government is to raise it to 1,000 euros in 2022 -35 euros more than now- and raise it to 1,045 euros in 2023, the year of the general elections.
Among the pending issues, the coalition must face the validation of the decree law of the labor reform before February 7. A procedure that could become a setback a few days before the electoral appointment in Castilla y León if Government partners such as EH Bildu or ERC, whose deputies are vital for the validation of the norm, materialize their threat of not supporting it when considering the “insufficient” text.
On the other hand, the PP, whose position was initially unknown, leaves this decision in the hands of the nationalists by turning from abstention to no. “Because they only repeal 10% of our labor reform, do we have to support it?” Pablo Casado wondered this Saturday at an act of his party in Salamanca.
Sánchez also considers impossible the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), whose mandate has expired since 2018, due to the lack of understanding with the popular.
Pending measures
In this context, from United We Can, there are increasing complaints that several of its social projects are being stopped by the socialists. This is the case of the trans law, the animal welfare law, the repeal of the so-called gag law or the housing law. The latter, fallow since both government partners began negotiations in November 2020. The PSOE promised to take it to Congress in six months, but the discrepancies between the two formations have delayed its arrival at the hemicycle.
The strategy of the morados is precisely to mark their own profile in this new electoral cycle, waiting to see the directions that the new political project that the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, is planning to build.
.