Ione Belarra has saved this Wednesday a parliamentary match ball in the Senate in the most meager way possible: by a single vote. The plenary session of the Upper House has rejected the four vetoes to the Animal Welfare Bill, presented by PP, PNV, Vox and UPN. And in two of them, those of the popular and the Basque nationalists, the vote has been decided thanks to the abstention of the senator of CsMiguel Sánchez, who has thus given a balloon of oxygen to the Minister of Social Rights.
The norm, which does not finally include hunting dogs, continues. The Senate’s veto would have been a cold water jug ??for Belarra, who reached the plenary session without having all the votes, but with the hope of reaching an agreement in extremis. In the midst of the internal crisis of the coalition government and right on 8-M, this “moral” defeat would have meant a setback for the general secretary of Podemos at the least opportune moment, and only one day after her parliamentary defeat on account of the Law of yes is yes.
The senator who has tipped the balance in favor of Belarra is Miguel Sánchez from Murcia, who supported, together with the PSOE, the failed motion of censure against Fernando López Miras in his region. He later seconded Edmundo Bal in the primaries and has assured the new management of Cs that he will shortly leave his record. If this parliamentarian had voted this Wednesday against the Animal Welfare Law, as Cs did in Congress, the norm would have been knocked down by the Upper House and should return to the Lower House. Once in Congress, it would require an absolute majority in the first vote to be lifted, or a simple majority in a second vote over the next two months.
The most curious thing is that, if the only Cs senator had not abstained, the PNV veto would have achieved an absolute majority… of carambola. Because? Because a senator from the PSOE, Manuel Mirás, has voted “yes” to knock down the rule. Something similar to the erroneous vote of Alberto Casero in the labor reform would have happened. The veto of the PNV has had 132 votes in favor -coming from the popular group, PNV, Junts per Catalunya, Vox, Más Madrid and several deputies from left-wing minorities- and 128 against the PSOE and ERC, as well as three abstentions: the from Cs, one from the Aragonese Party and another from Més per Mallorca.
The PP veto has garnered the same votes in favor (although without any socialist error) compared to 131 against and two abstentions (Cs and PAR). At the end of the debate in the plenary session of the Senate, Belarra has assured that he is starting a new path to end “the impunity of abusers” and to accompany those anonymous people and associations that until now have ensured animal protection from the institutions.
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