This Thursday, the Government experienced a new episode of parliamentary weakness by having to delay the Congressional Finance Commission to avoid a defeat due to the inability to reach agreement with partners. This is not an isolated event, but rather a symptom: the lack of support from Pedro Sanchez makes it very difficult for the Executive to implement legislative initiatives.
According to data from the Congress of Deputies, 2024 is the second year in the entire democracy in which there are fewer legislative initiatives (a total of 16) They were introduced. It is only surpassed by a strangely empty 2016 (with 10), but because the difficulty at the time in forming a government meant that Mariano Rajoy He remained in office for 315 days, from the December 2015 elections until his swearing in in October 2016.
This is not the case for Sánchez. The socialist president has not spent a single day in power this year. The problem is that he obtained an investiture majority so varied and so tight that he now finds that the intersecting interests of his partners are blocking his initiatives and that he does not have the capacity (nor the intention) to seek an alternative majority with the PP.
A month and a half from the end of the year, of the 16 legislative initiatives approved, most (seven) are real decree-laws, a much faster formula than the development of a standard, even if it must then be validated. Two of them concern DANA and another concerning RTVE which managed to be validated thanks to the inclusion of people linked to its partners within the board of directors.
In 2024, only five laws and four organic laws have been approved. In the case of the former, they are hardly ideological in nature (these are the laws of the Commonwealth or those of firefighters and forestry officers) because the Executive is not capable of bringing its partners to an agreement.
Organic laws have a more important ideological content, the amnesty law standing out from all of them. There is a murmur in the Congress of Deputies to criticize the lack of legislative activity and say that The government was only able to approve the amnesty law and nothing more. Although it’s not exactly that, it’s similar.
Last year, despite the general, regional and municipal elections, which always slow down all parliamentary procedures, the Congress of Deputies approved 25 parliamentary initiatives. Even if we move away from the most productive years -AndThe year in which the greatest number of initiatives were approved was 1978, with 141—there are many more than today.
Another interesting fact is that Pedro Sánchez was president during three of the five least productive years of Congress. After 2016 and 2024, in 2008 only 18 initiatives were approved, with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as president. 2023 and 2019 are fourth and fifth in the ranking, with 25 and 26 initiatives respectively.
There are 49 laws blocked
Despite the legislative break, this is not due to a lack of work. In the Congress of Deputies, there are currently (as of this Friday, November 15) 49 legislative initiatives in the review period, ready to continue their processing. Deadlines are extended sine die to prevent them from refusing or not approving initiatives from the Senate, where the PP has an absolute majority.
And 17 of these initiatives are bills emanating from the government itself and which Moncloa is unable to unblock. The most extensive initiative of these is the Family lawwhich has undergone no less than 28 postponements since its registration last March, although it was treated urgently.
In addition, 14 legislative initiatives emanate from the Senate. For the Popular Party, this situation represents a lack of institutional respect towards the Upper House, since the Congress does not allow their treatment because they start from a chamber where they have an absolute majority and the PSOE and its partners do not were unable to make changes, or they are minimal.
“Progressive” majority broken
The difficulties encountered by the Government in carrying out its initiatives were clearly demonstrated this Thursday. The Executive decided to delay for the second time the Finance Commission which examines a set of tax measures —which Moncloa describes as “reform”— given the impossibility of reaching an agreement with their investiture partners and not throwing themselves into the arms of the PP.
Spain should have transposed a European directive on the taxation of large companies and multinationals by the end of 2023 and could be sanctioned (even with the risk of withholding part of the Next Generation funds) if it does not do so. The Treasury, however, decided to include several amendments for the conversion into taxes of taxes on banks and energy companies.
During this process, the government agreed on a series of measures with the PNV and Junts, including a reduction in the bank tax and the removal of the tax on energy companies. However, the left partners do not want to leave the tax aside and will therefore not support the package agreed with the jeltzales and the post-converged.
One option would be to vote only on the transposition and leave aside the amendments, so that banking and energy taxes can be addressed later. But Junts stood up and declared that either the deal was accepted in its entirety or there was no deal. The situation is a real impasse, even if Moncloa hopes to find in the coming days the key to squaring the circle within the Finance Commission, which will meet again this Monday.
This is not the only example, however. In September, the Congress of Deputies stopped holding its plenary session on two Thursdays, a day reserved for government initiatives. The President of the Lower House, Francine Armengoltook this decision to avoid submitting certain standards to a vote and seeing them decline for lack of support.
This generalized situation since the return of summer shows that the Government no longer has a progressive majority, as it called for during the inauguration, on which to rely to carry out its measures. This also complicates the Government’s major aspirations, such as the achievement of the 2025 Budget or a reform of regional financing. And this has serious consequences: the legislative power is not able to legislate.
