In the 11th legislature, the Valencian Parliament moves at a snail’s pace. The DANA of last October 29 altered the deadlines of the Chamber, which in the last quarter should be debating the budgets and the accompanying law, but instead the Corts Valencianes have become a wasteland. There are hardly any plenary sessions, nor any appearances, and some commissions have been paralyzed for a semester, since PP and Vox approved the package of five regressive laws at once.
The breakup of the PP with Vox and the changes in the Consell of Carlos Mazón, coinciding with the summer, have already delayed an activity that the floods, with another government crisis, have ended up altering. The regional Parliament should be debating the budgets or the opposition’s initiatives, which have been frozen for some time because the sessions have not been convened. The Board, chaired by Vox, agreed to enable January to hold commissions, with the idea that by then the Executive will have a Budget project and a law of fiscal measures to debate. DANA left the draft budget for 2025, which was to be presented on October 30, expired, and now the Minister of Finance has confirmed that they are working against the clock on a new standard adapted to the needs.
PP and Vox do not seem to be in a hurry on certain issues. For example, when the councilors appear to explain their projects, which will not be until December 20, a month after taking office. Nor in convening the Coordination Commission to address the appearances of the three regional secretaries of the Presidency, the hard core of Mazón, to account for the information management of the catastrophe. The PSPV has been demanding this session for a month and the commission, chaired by the PP, turns a deaf ear. The regulations of the Cortes state that the legislative commissions have to meet once a month, but the conservative majority ignores this issue. Five months of instability in the regional Executive have changed the parliamentary agenda.
Entering December, the regional Parliament has launched a battery of sessions, almost two per day, to make up for lost time and address initiatives related to DANA. In November, only one commission was held, that of industry, commerce and tourism on the 19th, which had not met since July 9, when the regional secretary of Industry appeared. It has only been called eight times since the May 2023 elections. Another striking absence is that of Education, where Minister Rovira appeared on Wednesday with a string of outbursts; The commission had not been convened since June 10, despite protests from the opposition. That session was the one that addressed the educational law of the Consell, which is now in the Constitutional Court following an appeal promoted by Compromís.
Another commission that is not convened is the one that has to do with the Valencian Public Radio and Television, À Punt. Since the law was approved in June, which changes the majorities, parliamentarians have not been summoned for anything related to it. After months of delaying the presentation of candidates to the Board of Directors, despite the fact that the law established that it should be within a month, the Plenary Session of the Cortes next week will vote on the members of the body, all proposed by PP and Vox.
Yes, measures have been addressed in which the Presidency had great interest, and which were delayed, precisely, due to the change in position of Vox, which decided for a moment in the summer to act as opposition to the Executive from which they had left. This is the case of the ‘Simplify Plan’, a decree processed as a bill that was approved on November 29 despite passing the first round in Corts in July. The text, which was promoted as a tool to reduce bureaucracy, has ended up being a sieve for PP reforms in disparate matters such as urban planning, transparency or social services. The decree is an image of the way of governing that Mazón’s PP has adopted: having lost parliamentary support, after the approval of the first legislative package, it is governed by decree. The Environment and Public Works commissions have also been activated, hot topics in the legislature, which will analyze the projects of Minister Vicente Martínez Mus, the most active during the DANA, on changes in the autonomous territorial model.
#weakness #change #position #Vox #paralyze #Valencian #Courts
