The real negotiation of the General State Budgets for 2023 begins now. The Government managed this Thursday to overcome the amendments to the totality presented by PP, vox, cs, together, cup, Asturian Forum and the former deputies of UPN. It achieved this thanks to an initial agreement with the investiture partners and, above all, thanks to an understanding with ERC. The 13 Republican representatives are essential to carry out almost any initiative of the legislature. The talks, as is usually the case between the Government and Esquerra, were discreet in order to avoid the veto and from now on they will have to be intensified to establish definitive support for the bills.
These negotiations will be added to the many others that the central Executive maintains in parallel with the formation led by Oriol Junqueras. Some of them are intertwined, others have been stagnant for months and others are just waiting to find the exact moment to give their results. In this art of reaching an agreement, the Minister of the Presidency, Felix Bolanosand the person in charge of the Treasury, Maria Jesus Montero. In front are the ERC spokespersons in Congress, Gabriel Rufianand in Parliament, Martha Vilalta. And the topics to be discussed are the most varied:
The most visible negotiation will be, from now on, that of the General State Budgets. ERC has facilitated the processing of accounts, but has already criticized the “strong military accent” and has branded “patches“Some of the measures included. The Republicans will register their partial amendments this Friday, although their deputy Joan Margal It has already dropped that, among other issues, they will demand that part of the investment dedicated to arms companies go to SMEs.
In addition to small modifications to introduce improvements in investment in Catalonia, Margall harshly called for the need to improve the execution of the financing included in the Budgets. “In this field we can no longer trust you, you always fail“, he made Montero ugly. “It is essential to create a guarantee mechanism for a correct level of execution of investments in Catalonia,” he reiterated.
sedition reform
Much more out of the spotlight will be the negotiation to reform the crime of sedition. The modification of the penalties included in the Penal Code has been flying for months over the relationship between the PSOE Government and United We Can and ERC. In recent weeks it seems that both sides of the table are beginning to understand each other. The premise is to publicly ensure that this negotiation has nothing to do with the Budgets, but the truth is that it is difficult to separate the two issues.
Margall affirmed in the Congress tribune that his party facilitated the first process of the Public Accounts to give a new opportunity to the negotiation and “advance in dejudicialization of the conflict”. Montero did want to separate Budgets from sedition, but he ended up assuring that the Government will take a reform of this crime to Congress. He later clarified that this is his commitment, but that the necessary majorities have not yet been achieved. Everything is pending, therefore, of the negotiation.
If there is a law that was born and grew under the General State Budgets, it is the Housing Law. The last two years it has been the protagonist of the negotiations and an essential condition for United We Can to support the accounts. This time it seems that it will be ERC who will press for the rule to be unblocked and continue its processing in Congress. Rufián has already warned that the talks to approve the Budgets “start badly” if they do not contemplate the housing law.
Republicans want the standard protect the legislation approved by the Parliament on rentals and that the Government took to the Constitutional Court. In addition, ERC sees the text approved by socialists and purples as insufficient and intends to toughen it to prevent rent increases in stressed areas.
The reform of the Citizen Security Law, known as the ‘gag law’, has been making headlines since the first day that Pedro Sanchez Y paul churches they agreed to form a coalition government whose objectives would include putting an end to this regulation approved during the mandate of Mariano Rajoy. Nearly three years later, the talks continue. PSOE and United We Can reached an understanding within the Executive months ago, but now they have to come to an agreement with ERC and EH Bildu, two essential parties to reach an absolute majority of 176 ‘yeses’. The difficulty, among other aspects, lies in agreeing on the anti-riot material that the State Security Forces and Bodies can use.