"We have not lost a single vote, in the most fragmented Parliament in history," the government highlighted after another week of frenetic legislative activity, in the midst of a political storm, which culminated in the final approval of eleven new laws in the courts that They headed to the Official State Gazette.
Like the organic law that reforms the Criminal Code, published yesterday in the BOE, to replace the crime of sedition with that of aggravated public disorder, review embezzlement and incorporate the unjustified wealth enrichment of public officials. And with the transitory provisions that will try to avoid undesired effects in their judicial application before convictions for corruption, after the perverse consequences of the law of only yes is yes .
Pedro Sánchez ordered a legislative acceleration before the end of the year, to clear the political landscape as far as possible. "We want to start the new course clean", they assure La Vanguardia in Moncloa. "With a clear outlook, to enter electoral mode", the Government and the leadership of the PSOE agree, before the municipal and regional elections next May, and the general ones scheduled for December 2023.
This legislative acceleration this week resolved major issues: the Senate put an end to the parliamentary processing of this penal reform, but also approved the general state budget for next year or the law that introduces new taxes on banks, energy corporations and great fortunes to fight inflation.
All this end-of-year legislative battery brings the number of laws and government decrees already approved in this legislature to 192. Specifically, there are 101 laws: from the first, on July 15, 2020, to repeal objective dismissal for lack of attendance at work, to the last one for this year, last Thursday, to repeal sedition and reform embezzlement.
Between the two there is an extensive catalog that includes three State budgets, the new legislation for Democratic Memory, Education, Vocational Training, Euthanasia, Sexual Freedom, Human Trafficking, Equal Treatment, Energy Transition, Science, Sport, the minimum vital income , the revaluation of pensions and a long etcetera.
Despite the government's parliamentary minority, the dissensions within the coalition between the PSOE and Unidas Podemos, and the misgivings of the investiture bloc, and under heavy artillery fire from the right, no vote was lost. The vote on the labor reform last February was about to break the course of the legislature, and of Sánchez's mandate. But an erroneous vote of the Popular Party saved her.
In addition, in the course of the legislature, Parliament has validated up to 90 royal decree-laws, and one royal legislative decree, many of them to apply urgent measures in the face of the coronavirus crisis, the Filomena storm, the forest fires, the volcano of La Palma or the energy and inflationary crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.
Altogether, 192 legislative initiatives approved so far and, according to the Executive, with the same objectives: "Expand rights and protect families and companies."
In the legislative rush at the end of the year, Sánchez only saw the express judicial reform that he promoted to try to renew the Constitutional Court frustrated, before the appeal of the PP that managed to blow up its parliamentary process. An unforeseen event that caused a serious institutional clash, but that Sánchez plans to circumvent with the bill that will be registered in Congress, if nothing goes wrong, next week.
