Irene Montero has recognized that she is “quite worried” because the so-called “only yes” law is “in danger” of losing the decisive support to get ahead in Congress. The Minister of Equality transfers the pressure so that this does not happen to the PSOE and demands that it withdraw in extremis an amendment that is voted on Wednesday in committee because it threatens the support of the other parliamentary partners of the Government for the bill.
“We are going to talk to the PSOE, which is the one on whom the possibility that this law is not in danger depends,” said Montero, who thus discharges the responsibility of what happens with his star law of the legislature on the Socialists. In case of decline, a schism would open between the PSOE and United We Can, the two partners of the Government.
The reason for the conflict is in a debate on prostitution. The original Equality bill recovered for the Penal Code the crime of locative third party, which implies punishing with prison sentences those who rent real estate, flats or premises to people who practice prostitution, even if it is a practice totally consented by those people. , because he understands that they benefit economically from an “exploitation”.
That gave rise to a cataract of amendments. On the one hand, it has the rejection of ERC, PNV, EH Bildu, Ciudadanos or Más País, among other parties, who asked to eliminate these two articles.
On the other hand is the PSOE, which claims to be “more demanding” and proposes a text with more “ambition”, because it considers that locative third party is a form of “pimping”. His amendment affects being more forceful in the pursuit of the transfer of spaces to practice prostitution. Reformulates the wording of Equality to focus on “profit” and not on “exploitation” and toughens prison sentences.
At this point, and before a decisive meeting of the Equality Commission that finishes off the law this Wednesday to send it to plenary, the PSOE has the support of the PP so that its amendment goes ahead. That would mean that it would be incorporated into the opinion of the law and that it would be part of the final text that would be voted on next week in plenary.
The partners of the Government are transferring to the Ministry of Equality that they would not support that law if it is finally left with the PSOE amendment and, as the plenary vote will require reaching at least 176 votes in favor, because it is an organic law, the accounts indicate that the bill of the only yes is yes has all the ballots of not adding enough. At least, if there is no turn of events. Because the PP in this case would abstain.
Equality has been trying to find an agreement for months but in the end all the attempts have been crashing in the refusal of the PSOE to withdraw its amendment. The latest offer has been to directly eliminate the locative third party from the project and transfer it to the trafficking law. This has been rejected again by the PSOE but from the Ministry, as Montero has expressed, they were going to try to convince them before the commission begins.
Socialist sources assured this Wednesday that their amendment will be maintained until the end and that they cannot “lose opportunities” to go against prostitution. In addition, they pointed out that the responsibility for what happens with the law does not belong to those who vote in favor, but to the parties that would stand out to vote against it.
In declarations in Congress, Irene Montero acknowledged that she is “quite worried” and called on the PSOE, “who is the one on whom the possibility of reaching an agreement depends”, to take the discussion to the trafficking law and save the broad consensus that exists within Congress with the whole of the norm.
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