With the approval this Thursday of three important laws, Pedro Sánchez ensures the end of the legislature and consolidates a progressive majority in Congress, despite the unsustainable polarizing weather that Spanish politics lives and despite the forecasts of the opposition, which predicted -especially during the pandemic- that the coalition government would not fulfill its four-year mandate.
The most outstanding law, that of Budgets, was approved with 187 votes in favour, 11 more than the absolute majority required. Although ERC did not reveal its vote until the end, there was no doubt that it would join the ‘yes’ parties, thus reinforcing its alliance with the PSOE, which is based on the advances in the dialogue table between the Government and the Generalitat. These are the third Budgets that Sánchez has carried out with comfortable majorities, despite the fact that the two government parties only have 155 seats out of 350. This indicates that the alliance policy works.
The alliance with ERC has also made it possible to approve the repeal of the crime of sedition, which will be replaced in the Penal Code by that of aggravated public disorder. In this case, the vote was by appeal in an attempt by the PP to point out as “traitors to Spain & rdquor; to the deputies of the PSOE and their allies. But the lack of protection of the State does not exist, because the crime of rebellion remains untouchable and embezzlement will not be reformed either. The third law, on taxes on banks, energy companies and large estates, also went ahead thanks to the progressive majority.