Pedro Sánchez’s Government has emerged from the last extraordinary plenary session of the political year with a bittersweet taste: it has saved three initiatives with the force of law, but has suffered a new defeat on the deficit path, which was the most significant political vote of the day because it is the preliminary step to be able to present the State’s general budgets. This is the second time in two weeks that the Government sees how Congress rejects, with votes from PP, Vox, and Junts, the stability path, a sign that it will have difficulty processing the accounts.
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This Thursday’s plenary session included eight initiatives, four of which were directly promoted by the Government. In this regard, in addition to the deficit path, there were two decrees pending validation: one extending measures to mitigate the impact of the Iran War, which passed with 175 votes in favor and the abstention of the PP; and another on urgent measures regarding early partial retirement for public administration employees, approved with 167 “yes” votes and the decisive abstention of the PP. Junts voted in favor of only the first decree and abstained on the second.
The other norm promoted by the Government is the law for the State to assume debt from the autonomous communities, agreed with Esquerra –it would assign Catalonia 17,000 million out of 83,000–: in this case, the Government has saved the processing of the norm as Congress has rejected the total amendments from PP and Vox.
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The other four laws debated in Congress were promoted by parliamentary groups –that is, propositions–. One of them, with great political significance, was the reform of the Congress Regulations promoted by ERC, Junts, Podemos, Compromís, and BNG to facilitate minorities having their own group. Specifically, with the reform, the percentage of votes at the national level to form one’s own group is reduced from 5% to 3%, and the percentage in the provinces where they obtain representation is reduced from 15% to 10%. Despite the PSOE’s gesture to its partners, it has not managed to mend the investiture majority and save the deficit path.
Finally, Congress has given its final approval to the Bill on the transition of mutualist members to the Self-Employed Regime (RETA) and to the Bill on the modification of rules for the neonatal screening program of the National Health System, two initiatives promoted by the PSOE, but which have incorporated amendments from the PP approved in the Senate and endorsed yesterday in the Lower House. The bill for the transfer of ownership and powers of the Atlantic Highway (AP-9) to Galicia is an initiative promoted by the Galician Parliament and, although the PP tried to include amendments in the Senate to recover the original wording, they were rejected by Congress.
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