Pedro Sánchez’s democratic regeneration plan, officially baptized by Moncloa as Action Plan for Democracy, It contains recycled measures from previous government proposals, many inconcretions and generic proposals and multiple references to European directives. And they have very few guarantees of advancing in the parliamentary process any of the complex legal reforms it contains.
The government explains that the 32 measures only constitute a roadmap to be developed over the three years of the legislature and, therefore, they must necessarily be generic, so that they can be negotiated and discussed by the parliamentary groups.
The controversy is whether these inconcretions may include measures that could affect freedom of expression or the activity of private media.
Furthermore, the Government does not foresee measures regarding public media, although the European directive invoked requires them; it imposes limitations on polling companies during electoral periods, but does not mention the CEI and does not specify any measures of incompatibility of senior officials, even if it includes the autonomous communities in the proposals for responsibility and institutional publicity.
In fact, the project was born during the five days of confinement of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, after learning of the judicial investigation against his wife, Begoña Gómez. Sánchez then spoke of measures against hoaxes and pseudo-media.
Its uncertain future is demonstrated by the impossibility for some of them to advance in Parliament while they were raised by the PSOE with such a narrow majority and with conflicting interests. For example, the PNV already said yesterday that “the measures announced are vague. We will have to wait and see what many of them mean exactly.”
The Basque Group cannot carry out a thorough evaluation of the project because it has not been consensual and does not know its exact content, but it is not a legislative body to legislate, and even less to launch measures without discussing them with those who provide parliamentary support.
The oldest of the recycled proposals is the reform of the law on citizen security, known as Gag Lawwhose reform began to be developed in 2014, was close to an agreement in the last legislature and ended up declining. Its reform depends on two measures that the Sánchez government has always rejected: the use of rubber bullets by state security forces and the sudden return of migrants.
There is another one that was even among the electoral proposals of José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as a political leader and has never been addressed due to technical and political difficulties. This is the obligatory nature of debates between candidates during election campaigns.
Sources from previous socialist teams explain that they never knew how to establish the obligatory nature, nor decide how many people in each campaign, with what format and with which participants. The minister Felix Bolanos He assured this Friday during the presentation of the plan that there was no decision to make a proposal on all these measures.
The reform of crimes of expression, such as those referring to the Church or institutions, was announced in 2020 by the then Minister of Justice and now magistrate of the Constitutional Court, Juan Carlos Campowithout it being fully addressed. Years later, the full session of Congress agreed to admit for consideration a Sumar proposal that had been shelved in Congress.
The Sanchez government has approved a official secrets project in the last legislature that was rejected by its partners and did not advance in its development. And the PNV has been presenting texts for almost 10 years in the different legislatures that the PSOE has always rejected.
A bill on the professional secrecy of journalists was also considered in Congress last season, at the suggestion of professional associations. Progress was made in the negotiations, but it declined when the Chambers were dissolved. Now the government is recovering it.
The PSOE and the PP have also repeatedly wanted to legislate on influence groups or lobbies for years. Various initiatives have been accepted for processing, but have never been approved. Today, the government includes it again in the plan.
Another group of measures is non-specific measures, which will be developed in the future. For example, Sánchez announced in April a reform of the system laws protecting the right to honor and rectificationwhich is now included in the plan again. However, in yesterday’s presentation, the government did not go beyond talking about updating the standards approved in the eighties.
The same thing happens with the reform of the Penal Code on crimes of freedom of expression or with others referring to the media.
Most of those who refer to the media base themselves on the European regulation on freedom of the media that the European Parliament approved last April, with the votes of the socialists and the popular citizens of this Assembly.
For example, those related to transparency in media ownership and the institutional advertising they receive. In some cases, the Government adapts this regulation and, for example, makes it National Securities Market Commission the one who controls the recording of media and whether or not they comply with the rules.
The government does not explain what happens if hoaxes are spread from a website that is not registered as a media outlet or what damages that page will suffer compared to those that are considered media outlets. In other words, it would not put an end to what Sánchez calls the “pseudomedia” nor to Telegram groups like the one used by Alvise Perez to spread hoaxes, which he relied on to achieve an excellent result in the European elections.
There is a measure announced by the government that is not included in the European regulations, which is the one that provides for limiting the maximum percentage of institutional advertising that a single media can receive.
The regulation establishes transparency and proportionality requirements for the distribution of institutional advertising. At this stage, a difficulty arises for its approval, since the nationalist or pro-independence parties are reluctant to see their ability to manage this advertising in the respective autonomous zone limited.
Curiously, the government’s plan does not even mention public media, despite the fact that the regulations are very demanding on this subject. There is no reference, while the European standard imposes respect for its independence and the conditions for dismissal and appointment of its directors.
The measures contained in the plan demand changes in at least six laws: the Advertising Law, the Penal Code, the Senior Officials Code, the CNMV (National Securities Market Commission) Law, the Citizen Security Law and the Electoral Law. Some of these are organic laws, meaning they require an absolute majority that is difficult to obtain.
Regarding the electoral law, the proposal, in addition to the debates, is to oblige private media to publish the metadata of the surveys. It does not mention the use of official surveys of the IEC, nor the small amount of fines for violation of the government’s duty of neutrality during election campaigns. Sánchez and several ministers have been sanctioned on several occasions for breaking this neutrality.
The project to “extend transparency obligations, strengthen controls on public officialsparticularly in matters of conflicts of interest”, but it was not specified in what way or whether, for example, this could affect the couple of Presidents of the Government.
It is also unclear what the competence of the hoax commission which is intended to be created in Congress. The government does not explain whether it is intended to detect hoaxes, study measures, demand political responsibilities or control the actions of the authorities.
Some government partners, such as ERC or Podemos, have demanded in recent months measures that go further and include sanctions against those who spread hoaxes, in addition to measures in the area of justice to avoid what they call rightthat is, the use of justice for political ends.
They are also demanding measures on the “revolving doors“which are also not explicit in the plan.
