The calendar is marking the last bars of the legislature. It is time to decide what is promoted and what is kept in the drawer. With the connotation that in a coalition government what is approved and who presents it implies having political returns. The Council of Ministers approved yesterday in the second round the preliminary draft of the family law, one of the star measures of the Ministry of Social Rights led by Ione Belarra. Knowing since the end of last week that the regulations would see the light of day this Tuesday, Derechos Sociales contacted La Moncloa to request that Belarra appear before the press and describe the regulation. But in the presidential complex they did not consider it opportune. A decision that generated discomfort in United We Can.

It is not the first time in recent times that a purple minister has been left out of a press conference when the background and even logic invited her to be present. It happened in the run-up to 8-M, when she did not come out as in other years Irene Montero, Minister of Equality, and three socialist ministers who capitalized on the Executive’s feminist agenda. Circumstance that fuels even more anger within United We Can.

“They use Moncloa as if it were their farmhouse”, is the reflection that United Podemos expounds in reference to the PSOE and the non-presence yesterday of Belarra. The Minister of Social Rights, faced with the impossibility of selling one of her main laws, posted a video of her on social networks before the press conference began, detailing all the details of her regulations. The official press release from her ministry made the discontent and confrontation with the PSOE very clear: «The Government approves the Belarra Families Law that recognizes all families and addresses the emergency of reconciliation with new permits ». Law with the surname of a minister. A statement that included statements by Belarra, under the following nuance: “In statements sent to the press.”

In the purple space they consider that the family law is a “very important initiative”, “of weight” and that it deserved the presence of Belarra. They also recall that José Luis Escrivá, Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations, already appeared last week for the pension reform, as he did today, because then there was an extraordinary and almost monographic Council of Ministers on the subject.

In Unidas Podemos they believe that the PSOE has already openly turned on the electoral machinery and the press room of La Moncloa is one more asset to use in their interests. “They [the PSOE] are already in the campaign,” reflect the sources consulted, who point out that the Family Law is a norm that has not entailed the clashes or frictions of the depth of other texts, “there has not been an ideological struggle” as in other laws. “It doesn’t make sense,” they repeat in the purple space in the absence of their ministers.

A circumstance that also contrasts with the presence and prominence that in La Moncloa they decided to give to Yolanda Díaz during the celebration of the failed motion of censure promoted by Vox a few days ago. The second vice president enjoyed, in collusion with the socialists, her own focus and profile.

In the presidential complex, to justify the absence of Belarra in the press room, they cling to the argument that they have already used on other occasions: it is a law that passed through the Council of Ministers for the second time and that Belarra already appeared in the first chance. Isabel Rodríguez, spokesperson for the Executive, also appealed that in the norm “there are no substantive changes” with respect to the first version. And, above all, he defended the presence of Calviño and Escrivá, and not of Belarra, because these ministers were handling matters “of relevance and importance so that the Government decides that the priority is to address the socioeconomic issues that are part of the concerns of the Spaniards, decisions as important as the extension of the Iberian exception to gas or the pension reform.

It happens that this argument from La Moncloa that a minister does not appear, even if it is an emblematic law of his department and the Government, if it reaches the Council of Ministers in a second round, is not always the case. It is somewhat arbitrary. For example, on February 7, the Law creating the State Public Health Agency was in the second round and Minister Carolina Darias did appear. In September 2022, the head of Justice appeared despite the fact that the Regulatory Law for the Protection of people who report on regulatory violations and the fight against corruption was in the second round, among other examples.

The truth is that barely 24 hours after Pedro Sánchez executed his fifth government crisis, without touching the ministries of United We Can to preserve the coalition, the message sent by the socialist sector is that they have the upper hand and that the role of Unidas Podemos will be relegated and corseted to what they dictate.

Pedro Sánchez, in recent weeks, has been carrying out a profuse defense of the coalition and its continuity, knowing that it is the only way to try to stay in La Moncloa. “A coalition that has known how to forge agreements with the social agents, with multiple political formations, with the other Member States of the European Union and that has been able to push through 200 laws in Parliament,” the President of the Government highlighted on Monday when announced Héctor Gómez and José Manuel Miñones as new ministers. He defends the coalition but makes it clear who is in charge and who is the majority partner, especially now that the Council of Ministers is a great electoral showcase.

And while PSOE and Unidas Podemos continue to fight, the Socialists agreed with the PP on the appointment of four new members of the Council of State. They are the former deputy general secretary of the PSOE Elena Valenciano; the former Minister of Labor of the PP, Juan Carlos Aparicio; the former government delegate and former mayor of La Coruña, the socialist Francisco Javier Losada and the former president of La Rioja, the popular Pedro Sanz.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project