The 15th legislature is blocked, according to Junts, but it continues to function anyway, for the Government. And it doesn’t look like anything major will change in the next few weeks. In the only five plenary sessions that remain to be held in the Congress in this period of sessions, before the Christmas break, the PSOE and the Sumar government want to encourage the elaboration of half a dozen projects that had been blocked and which until now had had the support of Junts. Some are already on their way to the plenary session, so that all groups can be represented at the vote, and others have just been reactivated in a presentation, such as the much requested law on multiple recidivism from Junts.
In the central government they do not see that the legislature is defeated or exhausted, although this week Junts, who was an investiture partner, made good on the threat to table amendments to all future planned bills and not to support those that have not already been signed. This is a threat that in many specific cases seems stronger than applicable, and this is the hope of the parties in the governing coalition, who want to put it to the test in the coming weeks too.
This Thursday, early in the morning, the spokesperson of Junts, Míriam Nogueras, and the other six deputies of Carles Puigdemont’s party, showed up in Clara Campoamor’s chamber and announced that the legislature was blocked due to the 50 laws already being processed in parliament, only three of which had a written commitment with them. They also warned that they will no longer negotiate anything and that they will present comprehensive amendments and reject all pending projects. That afternoon, around 6pm, Congress reactivated the discussion document on one of Junts’ most fought-over projects in the last year, the law against multiple recidivism.
Nogueras herself interpreted this Friday, on RNE, that after the latest decisions taken by Junts to distance themselves from the Central Executive, things have changed and cited the law on multiple recidivism and the talks and joint communications with the German government to seek an agreement on the use of all the official languages of Spain in the European institutions. The leader of the Junts, however, made it clear that these steps will not cause her “overturn”, confirmed that the legislature is broken and once again showed her discomfort at the fact that President Pedro Sánchez has not yet appeared to explain how he intends to continue governing without support. In the Executive they specify that they find themselves with the same initial parliamentary minority with which they have been operating every week in Parliament for two years: the 147 seats of the PSOE and Sumar.
The PSOE intends to advance in the legislature in a similar way to what it has done so far. When they are clear that a bill can be socially useful and confirm that it could also be of interest to Catalonia, they will show it to Junts and wait for his pronouncement. When they conclude that this initiative shows no signs of success, because Junts has clearly expressed his opposition, they will not continue its elaboration, as they have done so far with around thirty proposals that are stuck in what the PP calls the “Armengol freezer”, referring to the Speaker of the Chamber.
It was not a bad thing for the Executive that this Thursday afternoon the presentation was launched which will now have to discuss in detail the law against multiple recidivism, an amendment to the penal code that Junts presented in April 2024 and which was taken into consideration in September of the same year with the support of that formation plus PP, Vox, PNV, UPN and PSOE, but which saw left-wing allies vote against it. That division remains the same. If he reached the plenary session he would emerge with the support of the parliamentary right.
Government sources point out that the rule was not simply stopped and underline that in this period the Ministries of the Interior and Justice have assessed its impact, issues such as the drafting of reports have been taken into consideration, a system has been activated to provide tools to all forces and state security bodies, including the local police, to have access to these databases and Junts was informed, in monthly meetings in Switzerland with the former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, that he would fix the presentation immediately. In recent months, complete and partial amendments have been developed and the entire articles of the law have been revised. The presentation will begin next Wednesday, after the plenary session in which Pedro Sánchez will intervene to address some current issues.
In the next few weeks, in the four or five plenary sessions that could be held before Christmas and the legislative break due to the elections already called on December 21st in Extremadura, other projects that could put Junts in difficulty will be discussed and voted on. The calendar is highly studied and evaluated.
On Thursday 13 November, two bills that Junts supports in principle will be debated in the Chamber: the law on sustainable mobility and the law on customer service. The following week on the agenda is the validation of the decree with the extraordinary funding of 500 million for the law on ALS patients and probably that of Dana. And scheduled for the last plenary sessions of this period is the law on the Social Economy, in which Junts has shown great interest, and the law on the Public Service, which included two demands much requested by the Catalan party: the election of the municipal secretaries of the Municipal Councils by the territories themselves and that anyone who wants can and must be assisted by all administrations, including the central one, in the Catalan language. In the Chamber, the Government will accelerate the presentation of the Temporary Rental Housing Bill and the legislation it seeks to regulate lobby depression.
