“I hope it doesn’t occur to you to support this,” remonstrated, addressing the socialist bench, Jon Iñarritu, deputy of EH Bildu, one of the firmest pillars of the Government’s faltering parliamentary base. The PSOE, indeed, harbored many misgivings about the PP’s bill to toughen in the Penal Code the punishments for thefts and small scams of multiple repeat offenders, debated this Tuesday in the plenary session of Congress. On behalf of the socialist group, deputy Mamen Sánchez expressed her disagreement with the “exaggerated increases” and the “disproportionality” of some of the penalties contemplated in the PP initiative. And despite that, the socialists, against the criteria of the rest of the left, supported the processing of the proposal while announcing their intention to modify it to prevent “the punitive vision” of the popular ones from being imposed. The danger of a new parliamentary defeat for the Government loomed over the debate, since two of its theoretical allies, Junts and PNV, had announced their favorable vote.
With each passing week, the life of Congress reveals that the parliamentary majority that invested Sánchez is based on the will for dialogue with the independentists and the rejection of Vox’s Spanish ultranationalism. But when questions are raised that affect the ideological division between right and left, the bloc that supports the Government squeaks. The PP knows it and attacks there. With issues such as this proposal to reform the Penal Code, coinciding with positions of the PNV and, above all, Junts, which has already brought initiatives of a similar nature to Congress.
The PP’s bill seeks that recidivism in theft or fraud can be punished, in certain cases, with sentences of up to one to three years in prison. Something like this was already approved in 2015, but it ended up annulled by the Supreme Court when it understood that disproportionate punishments were established for minor crimes. The popular party intends to take it up again now by introducing some of the legal precautions raised at the time by the high court.
In recent electoral campaigns, the PP has revealed its intention to compete on some of the issues most dear to the extreme right, such as immigration or security. The defense of the proposal was entrusted to one of the most temperate deputies among the popular ranks, María Jesús Moro. And yet the spokesperson painted a panorama of “lawless cities,” in which she prevails “a broad sense of insecurity,” with “kiosks and supermarkets looted” and where “the elderly can no longer walk in peace.” Thefts, she said, are “a scourge throughout Spain” and cause annual losses to commerce of 1.8 billion euros. “The saying that criminals enter through one door and leave through the other is a reality,” stressed Moro, who brandished statements from the socialist mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, in favor of more legal measures against this type of crime.
Vox and UPN enthusiastically joined the proposal and, in a less heated tone, PNV and Junts. For this last training, Josep Maria Cervera denounced that “one of the most important problems” in “cities and towns” of Catalonia is “public security”, due to the “systematic practice of theft” by “groups that feel unpunished.” For Vox, Javier Ortega Smith boasted that his group had already presented a similar initiative in 2020 and ironically regarding the PP: “When it copies us, it is right.”
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Regarding the latter, there was a curious coincidence in argument between Vox and the groups further to the left, which intervened before the PSOE established its position. Because Iñarritu and Enrique Santiago, from Sumar, maintained that speeches like that of the PP are those that are, in the latter’s words, “causing the vote for the extreme right to settle throughout Europe.” Both highlighted that crime data in Spain is at the bottom of the continent. Santiago accused the popular party of trying to impose the same penalties on the “robagallinas” as those provided for other crimes such as corporate crimes. Teresa Jordà, from ERC, was less insistent on reducing the size of the problem, although she criticized: “To think that it is enough to impose more penalties or send people to jail is either naive or trying to deceive us.”
The PSOE was faced with the dilemma of remaining alongside its government partner, facing another parliamentary defeat, or letting the initiative pass while waiting to see what happens with its processing. He opted for the latter. Not without first airing his concern “about the increasing number of hoaxes” that spread in society and specifying that in no case will he join the “punitivism” of the PP.
The Government will face another exam on Thursday, this time with bad prospects. Junts has presented an amendment to the entire bill creating the Copyright Office, which may fail if right-wing groups join the independence veto.
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