Every time PSOE and United We Can reach an agreement – almost always with discrepancies and tensions – on the horizon of the coalition government, the following obstacles which must overcome the relationship between both partners. This dynamic has been fulfilled to perfection this week. Socialists and purples reached an agreement two weeks ago for the General Budgets of 2023 and, immediately afterwards, the differences that will test the seams of the coalition in an increasingly electoral environment were put on the table: the housing lawthe of animals and the call ‘gag law’.
As usual in budget negotiations within the Government, the talks lasted well into the early hours of Monday to Tuesday two weeks ago, until they reached an agreement. However, along the way, United We Can had to give up its claim to link the unblocking of the housing law to the future of the Budgets.
Just a few hours after the understanding, the Minister of Social Rights and leader of Podemos, Ione Belarraalready marked the following confrontation: “The PSOE is excessively aligned with the interests of the real estate employers. […] I want to ask you to help us in the coming months to push, mobilize yourselves and demand with us the immediate unblocking of the housing law“. The Socialists made it clear that they already negotiated this rule with the purples at the time and that they are not going to reopen those talks. Now, Moncloa sources point out that the rule could fully enter the budget talks to attract ERC and EH Bildu to ‘yes’.
parliamentary friction
In another video published on Twitter, the purple leader pointed out another of the clashes that are to come with her government partners: the amendments presented to the animal law. The norm, emanated from the Ministry of Social Rights, surpassed that same week the debate of the amendments to the totality and will now begin its parliamentary process. The conflict is in an initiative presented by the PSOE so that the norm, which fights against animal abuse, sacrifice and abandonment, does not affect auxiliary animals in hunting. “I want us to take care of the consensus that we have generated in the government,” said Belarra.
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Sources of the purple formation assure that they will fight to get the socialists to back down and warn that otherwise the norm could be shipwrecked. “We do not understand that the PSOE has bought the discourse of the right and has presented the amendment. […] Humble, but firmly, I want to ask the companions of the PSOE to withdraw this amendment“, claimed the spokesman for United We Can, Paul Echeniquefrom the tribune of the Congress during the debate of the law.
Less intense will be the friction around the call ‘gag law’, whose repeal has been pending since the start of the legislature. PSOE and United We Can reached a consensus a few months ago, but the negotiations continue between both formations and also with the rest of the parliamentary partners. This Friday, the deputy spokesman for United We Can in Congress, Henry Santiago, was “optimistic” about the idea that “soon” an agreement will be reached. Even so, the purples have been denouncing for months that the norm has been in force for longer with a progressive government than with the previous one of Mariano Rajoy.