"This has to be fixed." The order issued by Pedro Sánchez on Monday of last week, during the matins meeting in Moncloa, was exhaustive. But seven days of intense negotiations within the government coalition have failed to seal an agreement. The PSOE will not wait for United We Can to modify the controversial law of Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom, better known as the law of only yes is yes, and will register this morning in Congress its proposed law alone, as confirmed to La Vanguardia socialist sources, to try to eliminate the unwanted consequences of the norm after some 400 aggressors and rapists have seen their sentences reduced in recent months, a fact that has given ammunition, day in and day out, to the opposition.
"We can't wait any longer", they justify in the socialist direction, before a controversy that threatens to pass a high electoral bill to both formations if it is not corrected. The PSOE spokesman in Congress, Patxi López, will announce this at a press conference this morning in the Lower House. The Socialists extended the deadline on Friday to try to reach an agreement with their purple partners to change the rule, but this was not achieved over the weekend.
The PSOE bill maintains the return to the penalties prior to the entry into force of the norm promoted by the Ministry of Equality of Irene Montero when there is violence, intimidation or the will of the victim has been annulled.
The discrepancy between the two partners comes from the fact that the purples want to keep the idea of consent at the center of the norm and understand that introducing violence or intimidation to set the highest penalties, consent is no longer the key element. The PSOE, however, has guaranteed that the article referring to the consent of the woman will not be touched. “Not a comma”, they have insisted.
The PSOE proposal provides for recovering the fork of between 1 and 5 years in prison when there is no penetration, and between 6 and 12 when there is, provided that in these cases there has been violence, intimidation or the will of the victim.
The seams of the government coalition between the PSOE and Unidas Podemos are thus once again in maximum tension, already at the gates of the new electoral cycle, although neither party contemplates a break. Both Irene Montero this weekend and today Jaume Asens, president of the confederal group in Congress, have guaranteed that the coalition with the PSOE will not break. But the clash between the two parties is very dangerous, given the planned reform of the star rule of Podemos.
