The Government decided yesterday to withdraw its Land Law hours before it was due to be voted on in Congress, given the evidence that neither its government partners (Sumar) nor the parliamentary majority that supports it (Junts, ERC, PNV, Bildu…) were going to vote in favour, which left its possible approval in the hands of the opposition – the PP and Vox.
The government thus avoids a second defeat in the same week, given that Congress already threw out its law against pimping three days ago. In fact, in half a year of government it has only managed to obtain parliamentary approval for one law, on higher artistic education. Although it is foreseeable that on 30 May it will get the second law approved, the Amnesty Law that the PSOE agreed with its partners in order to secure Sánchez’s investiture after the PSOE lost the elections.
Pedro Sánchez has already given up on presenting a budget for 2024, despite the constitutional obligation to do so, given the evidence that he would not have sufficient parliamentary backing to push it through.
When their partners in government vote against the laws proposed by the PSOE, it is understandable that the Spanish press talks of an impossible legislature and a possible call for elections, while former Socialist president Felipe González publicly explains that “it is one thing to be in government and another thing to govern. They are two different things’. Although the pro-Sanchez media (El País, TVE…) are convinced that everything could change after the European elections on 9 June, which have led the different parties that supported the investiture of Pedro Sánchez – also undermined by the cases of alleged corruption of his wife, the Koldo plot… – to want to set their own profile.
