United We Can, ERC, Bildu and Más País present an amendment to try to convince the PSOE
If you are a regular at soap operas, you should not miss the one that surrounds the animal welfare law. The norm, one of the flags of United We Can, is on the edge of the ravine after a path that has left implausible scenes. It will be this Thursday when the last episode of this parliamentary procedure will probably take place and the script is marked by 12 wordsthose introduced by the PSOE, with the support of the PP, and which leaves hunting dogs out of the norm. This movement puts at risk the support of Unidas Podemos, ERC and EH Bildu, and Más País, whose votes are essential and without which the Government could suffer the first defeat of one of the laws emanating from the Council of Ministers.
“Hunting dogs, rehalas and auxiliary hunting animals will be excluded“. With this simple wording, the Socialists modified the text that the Executive itself approved last August. From the beginning, the opposition of Unidas Podemos was total and they plunged into dense negotiations with their partners to bridge these differences. Even, to In mid-December, they reached a ‘Schrödinger agreement’, the purples assured that there was an understanding and, at the same time, the Socialists denied it.Obviously, it did not arrive.
This Wednesday, just 24 hours after the rule is voted on, there is still no pact and the purples have tried one last move. Unidas Podemos, together with ERC, EH Bildu and Más País, have registered a compromise amendment to delete those 12 words from the standard and reverse the change of the PSOE.
hard deal
“We believe that in the last few hours we can convince the PSOE to return to the initial text“, confided the Secretary of State for the 2030 Agenda, Lilith Verstrynge (Can). The Socialists do not seem for the work of rectifying. After the opposition of several socialist barons to the norm and with the regional elections just three months away, the PSOE is reluctant to implement a law that has been rejected by the hunting world as a whole. “Hunting dogs are still equally protected“, has justified this Wednesday the deputy of the PSOE Jose Zaragoza.
However, the rest of the parliamentary partners do not see it from this same perspective. The ERC spokesman, Gabriel Rufián, has assured that his formation will not support a rule that does not take into account “animals that are used as tools and are killed.” “I wish there was the PSOE, but it is not“, he lamented. The leader of Más País, Íñigo Errejónhas been more forceful: “It is infamous that the dogs that suffer the most, that are treated like tools, are left at risk of possible mistreatment or abandonment.”
The regulation is divided into two different bills, one of which is organic in nature because it modifies the Penal Code. This makes the Executive need a absolute majority (176 seats) to pass the law in its entirety. Thus, the ‘yes’ of ERC, EH Bildu and Más País is essential after, obviously, PP and vox have already announced that they will oppose its approval. If the necessary support is not obtained, it will be the first time that a bill approved in the Council of Ministers is knocked down and the second time in the entire legislature that the Government loses a vote in Congress. The first was in September 2020, when the Lower House rejected a royal economic decree.