In the midst of the biggest crisis of the coalition government, the socialist sector of the Executive wants to turn the page as soon as possible on the “discrepancy”, as they describe it, on the reform of the law of only yes is yes while they boast of stability and more of 200 initiatives approved in Congress. But in recent weeks, the eagerness of the Socialists to impose their approaches in matters such as the norm of sexual freedom itself or that of animal welfare has incited their partners in governance, already upset by the ways of doing the Government, which they accuse little dialogue and try to force agreements. “It is not the way to do things”, is the consensus in parties such as Unidas Podemos, ERC or Bildu.
The PSOE has allied with the PP in the two laws mentioned above, first to exclude hunting dogs from the regulations; second to increase the sentences for sexual offenders. In both cases without agreement with the formations that guarantee the governability of Pedro Sánchez. “He has moved away from his partners and is undermining the majority that supports the Government” they explain from these parties. The partners are upset because they consider that the Executive cooks all their initiatives and takes them to Congress as if they were lentils: most of the time with little or no room for negotiation or change. «They are very on the wire. It’s very complicated”.
And it has not sat well that the Socialists have not hesitated to ally now with the PP, which has voted against practically all of the measures that the so-called investiture bloc has carried out. “Having beautiful headlines is not everything” they complain from ERC. The Housing Law is the last chapter. The Socialists want to unblock it to turn the page on the crises of the only yes is yes and convey that the Executive continues to legislate, that “there is a Government for a while” and put glue on the governability block.
Thus, from the PSOE yesterday they anticipated a very advanced agreement on this regulation that the partners, including Podemos, denied. “Today we are no closer to an agreement than yesterday,” said Minister Ione Belarra, after the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, pointed out that “there is practically an agreement” in the coalition government on the Housing Law.
Negotiation sources explain that in December there was an approach to approve the rule, setting a permanent ceiling of 3% for the increase in rental prices. That structural and indefinite ceiling accepted by Social Rights and Transportation – ministries that are leading the negotiations – is not accepted by Economic Affairs, which sets that ceiling of 3% but only for one year and then establishes as a reference a new price index that still is being elaborated. “It is approving something over which you do not have control later,” the PSOE members complain.
ERC and Bildu are the key for housing regulations to finally see the light. United We Can has been more reticent from the outset to accept certain changes that the PSOE has tried to introduce even after the text came out of the Council of Ministers, but at the same time it cannot oppose a law that constitutes one of its political flags . In this scenario, ERC and Bildu exert the pressure that Podemos cannot do, hence the mission of the Socialists to convince the Catalans and the Basques ahead of the purples. “Without ERC and without Bildu we would not be talking about this situation of blockade because the PSOE would have passed over the resistance of Unidas Podemos,” say the sources consulted by this newspaper.
“The PSOE lacks courage in many of the laws on the legislative agenda and then it happens that it generates disappointment,” they expose from the nationalist formations. “The next elections are going to be played between two blocks, and the PSOE has to decide whether or not it wants to lead the progressive space,” they reflect from Podemos in reference to the latest approaches to the PP and the initiatives in the Socialist Congress.
The PSOE, after achieving its purpose of achieving the first step in Congress to reform the law of only yes is yes, has undertaken a strategy to distance itself from the PP. Show distance while trying to stitch the governance block. To do this, it has recovered the photo of Alberto Núñez Feijóo and the drug trafficker Marcial Dorado as an argument to attack the PP. Sánchez and his ministers are used to this, who claim that he “disqualifies” him from holding positions of responsibility. “It is a photo that will always accompany you.”
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