The Government is close to a resounding parliamentary defeat, except that this morning, just before the meeting of the Congressional Finance Committeesquare the circle and get all your investiture partners to agree at the last minute. Or unless he makes a last minute turn again, postponing the vote or withdrawing his tax reform, as he has done on other occasions during this legislature where he has become accustomed to to live on the edge.
If he fails to do so, it will become clear that he is incapable of approving tax reform due to the impossibility of reconciling the positions of his right-wing partners (PNV and Junts) with those of his left-wing partners. (Podemos, ERC and Bildu).
The investiture bloc would be broken, it would be confirmed once again that there is no progressive bloc with a sufficient majority and the possibility of approving a budget for 2025 would be very difficult unless elements for the reconstruction of the Valencian Community. .
The practical consequence would be that on January 1, unless changed before this date, the taxes on energy and banks and other government proposals regarding private health care or vaping, among other new taxes, could not be approved.
Congress is examining a bill transposing a European directive aimed at harmonizing corporate taxes across the European Union. With this rule, the PSOE agreed with Junts and the PNV to eliminate the tax on energy companies and reduce the tax on banks, and with Sumar for the introduction of the aforementioned new taxes.
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The Government thus intended to fulfill the commitment with Brussels necessary to receive European funds. The formula: transform a bill aimed at imposing a minimum rate of 15% on large multinationals into a soup of amendments that had little or nothing to do with each other. The government called this “tax reform.”
These agreements and these amendments They irritated the left partnersThat is, Bildu, ERC and Podemos, who want to maintain and make permanent the aforementioned taxes on banks and energy companies.
In this way, there is not enough majority to implement the amendments agreed by the PSOE and, therefore, it would mean that on January 1, taxes on banks and energy companies would decrease, unless the government does not find another way to extend them before this date. date. . To do this would require a now distant agreement that would include PNV, Junts, Bildu, ERC and Podemos.
What the government was trying this Wednesday was at least save the bill with the European directiverenouncing tax reform.
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“It may be the simplest thing,” he told the House. Aitor Esteban (PNV), resigned to the difficulty of reaching an agreement. The negotiations are being led by the first vice-president, María Jesús Montero, and the way in which they are being carried out has irritated practically all of her interlocutors.
In other words, the PSOE and the Sumar government are incapable of dressing one saint without undressing another and, in less than three days, they have managed to antagonize their partners, from the right and the left. Due to the content of the different agreements and because it sought accept different groups different content and impossible to adapt.
“If everyone here wants to see their position absolutely respected, I imagine the consequence of all this will be that they withdraw it. for everyone’s taste it will be impossible“, Esteban said.
The parliamentary partners hope that Montero will try to convince them at the last minute to accept the amendments and approve them during the Finance Committee which will be held early in the afternoon, at the end of the plenary session. It would not be the first time that the government has avoided a parliamentary defeat thanks to a last-minute change of heart.
Some partners have submitted intermediate options to the Government, such as approving a small extension of taxes so that they do not fall on January 1 and continuing to negotiate calmly and within the framework of drawing up budgets. At the moment, Moncloa does not see it clearly, although it refers to the first vice-president, who has controlled the negotiations from the beginning.
