Congress keeps 20 laws ‘frozen’ from decree laws urgently approved by the Government and that, after being validated, the groups forced them to be processed as bills in order to introduce changes. Despite the fact that all of them are formally processed by the abbreviated procedure, a dozen of them have already spent a year in the drawer of paralyzed initiatives because the Congress Table does not end the deadlines for the presentation of amendments.
One of these ‘urgent laws’ is the plan of measures to deal with the crisis arising from the war in Ukraine, approved in March with an expiration date (June 30) and which President Pedro Sánchez has now promised to extend for three more months, which which will require a new decree law.
In the same situation of ‘hibernation’ there are another 25 legislative initiatives, according to data from the Chamber collected by Europa Press. Among them there are not only reforms sponsored by civil society, the Senate or autonomous parliaments, but also bills from the parliamentary partners and even from the parties that make up the coalition government.
The body that imposes the times for the start of the processing of the initiatives is the Congress Table, where the PSOE and United We Can have a majority against the PP and Vox. However, socialists and purples do not even join forces to activate the processing of their own texts. Most of the twenty decree laws converted into bills that are pending contain urgent measures to support different sectors launched on the occasion of the pandemic, including the so-called ‘social shield’ and its extensions. All of them are in force because they were validated at the time, but it remains to be seen if the groups will finally be able to modify them.
The oldest is about to turn two forgotten years. It is a bill from July 2020 with measures to deal with the impact of Covid in the transport and hospitality sector. A year and a half of hiatus already adds up to three other decrees transformed into bills aimed at supporting tourism and the trade, to reduce the gender gap, to modernize the Public Administration or to activate instruments of adaptation to Brexit.
Six months without progress accumulates the decree aimed at reforming the capital gains tax, almost the same as the one that seeks to promote electric mobility, self-consumption and the deployment of renewables, despite the fact that all of them had to be processed urgently.
There are now 25 legislative initiatives that do not come from the Government and do not register progress. Almost a third come from the Senate and another three come from regional assemblies: the Catalan Parliament awaits a reform of the Memory Law, from the Balearic another for the protection of the Mediterranean and the Basque one for the creation of a compensation fund for victims of asbestos (in this case, partial amendments have been presented but no further progress has been made). The deadline for amending two PNV laws, one to eliminate the prior appeal before the Constitutional Court and the sanctions for failing to comply with its sentences and another to reform the legislation on official secrets; as well as two others from the PDeCAT on delinquency and patronage incentives, respectively.
For its part, the ERC has not yet seen the start of the discussion on its proposal for the prevention of sexual abuse in educational centers nor the one related to stolen babies that it signed in September 2020 together with United We Can, PSOE, Bildu and the Plural Group .To the list is also added a proposal to reform the Regulations of Congress, proposed by the PSOE to regulate the actions of lobbies and another by the PNV that seeks to change the internal rules of the institution so that compliance with motions can be controlled or non-law proposals approved by the Chamber. With the sole signature of United We Can, the reform of the Penal Code is pending for the decriminalization of so-called crimes of opinion and to avoid jail in cases such as insults to the Crown, attacks on symbols of the State and the exaltation of terrorism and the one that defends a General Law of Mental Health.
Among those that ‘sleep the sleep of the just’ are also two Popular Legislative Initiatives (ILP) that came to the Chamber in 2016 after the effort of their promoters to collect half a million signatures, as required by law. One seeks to modify the ratios of nurses to guarantee a good service in health centers, and the other to end the co-payment in dependency services.
Added to them is another ILP, registered almost two years ago, to recognize the Mar Menor lagoon and its basin as a legal entity. people with disabilities’ in article 49. The Government sent it to Congress in May 2021, but PP and Vox do not support it and it could derail since it requires at least the support of the popular, since it needs a qualified majority (210 votes ) to get ahead
There are also several bills pending, whose processing is paralyzed, despite the fact that the groups have already presented their partial amendments. This is the case, among others, of the new Law of Democratic Memory, which the Government has preferred to leave fallow until it obtains sufficient support to guarantee its approval.
Likewise, the amendments registered during last autumn to the law on the retribution of CO2 not allowed in the electricity market and the one that creates the Sustainability Fund of the Electricity System are expected to be discussed.
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