The Government sought on Tuesday a successful parliamentary day to get to the holidays with some optimism after a very complicated course at the judicial level. But two of its usual partners, Junts and Podemos, have frustrated those plans with their rejection of the decree of measures that try to avoid in the future a new blackout like the one that affected the Peninsula on April 28. PP and Vox have also voted against, despite the pressures of electricity. Those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo have chosen to inflict a political defeat to Pedro Sánchez despite recognizing that they share a good part of the content of the law they have rejected.
The Congress approved on Tuesday the bulk of the measures examined in the last plenary before the holidays, such as the creation of a public health agency, two reforms of the regulation and two of the three decrees sent by the government. In fact, the Executive has only lost a vote of the seven that were held at the end of the session, as Sánchez himself said from Montevideo (Uruguay) where he is an official visit.
But the government lost one of the crucial votes, which contained the package of measures to reform the electrical system and avoid a new total blackout. The text had the endorsement of large and small electricity companies, and even environmental groups that are committed to the energy transition. The mystery about the final result remained until the last moment except by Podemos, which already confirmed on Monday morning its ‘no’ to the decree.
The rest of ‘Noes’ were falling throughout the day. To Podemos joined the votes against the PP, Vox, Junts, UPN, BNG and the Aragonesist Chunta (integrated into the Sumar Group) have formed a strange and forceful negative majority. 183 votes against 165 support for zero abstentions.
The decree sought to strengthen the role of the National Market and Competition Commission (CNMC) and the Public Company Red Electrica to increase the control of compliance with the obligations of the different electric operators. The measures collected the spirit of the conclusions of the report commissioned by the Government on the blackout that detected electric power plants that “were not regulating tension” and a “undue” disconnection of some facilities.
Of course, the document hid the name of these energy factories at the request of the companies in the sector. According to Eldiario.es, it was the photovoltaic Núñez de Balboa and Francisco Pizarro, from Iberdrola, which were disconnected in a “misunderstanding”.
The third vice president, Sara Aagesen, defended in the rostrum her intention that the system is more robust and appealed to the “huge social consensus” that in her opinion has generated the writing of this decree, with a support that goes, she said, from “environmental associations” to the “business and industrial.” There are powerful reasons to support this decree, “he said.
But that attempt to appeal to the consciousness of the groups did not bear fruit at any time. Some groups like Podemos had the decision made for days. They would not support those measures that they consider dictated by the energy companies that are responsible for the blackout for not having activated all system reinforcement systems.
“The system lacked the necessary mechanisms, such as compensators to face tension oscillations, because the generating companies had not invested in them,” denounced the deputy of the party, Martina Velarde.
During the plenary, the government has known the meaning of the vote of Junts, which has decided to reject the norm not for its content, but as a way of pressing the PSOE to comply with the investiture agreements. Catalan independentistas have announced their vote when the decree was already sentenced. Nor have the BNG or the deputy of Chunta Aragonesista, Jorge Pueyo, who has broken the discipline of voting to understand that the decree benefits the electricity, have voted in favor.
Feijóo sought Sánchez’s “total defeat”
The PP was the most mysterious group and, in fact, they only revealed the meaning of the vote minutes before Deputy Guillermo Mariscal defended the ‘no’ in the gallery. In a statement, Feijóo’s party crossed out “total defeat” Sánchez’s day and claimed early elections. Of course, in autumn.
A day before the second anniversary of the Fiasco of 23J, the PP chose to knock down the decree despite the “many pressures” that its deputies and leaders say they have received in recent days. In the message sent to journalists to inform the sense of their vote, those of Feijóo took the opportunity to claim “resignations” within the government. “Pedro Sánchez will not have achieved one of his goals. The defeat is total,” says the message, capital letters included. The PP adds to the fiasco of the decree the withdrawal of the law to reduce the working day and the so -called ‘Bolaños Law’ of Justice Reform.
“Sánchez had votes to get there, but he has no votes to continue,” says the statement, which claims “autumn elections” after ensuring: “It is not the opposition’s work to rescue Pedro Sánchez from the abandonment of those who made him president.”
And the content of the decree? The PP does not fully reject it. In fact, in the same statement the party says not to “agree on the part referred to the blackout”, without specifying a single specific measure. About the rest, the “incomplete” heels and announces that “the PP will present a proposition of law, in coordination with the Autonomous Communities, to guarantee the investments that our country needs in energy.” “We hope that text does have the support of the camera,” ditch the statement.
PP sources consulted by eldiario.es ensure that there are issues “expressed in an improvable way” and that the decree “does not protect the future of another blackout.” “There are things right and others, it is very complicated,” they add from the parliamentary group, to insist that the third vice president, Sara Aagesen, should have presented her resignation.
Regulation reform, deliveries on account and public health agency
Congress has approved the rest of the measures that were in the order of the last plenary session of the course. One of the decrees was an important disbursement of money for the autonomous communities. A total of 147,000 million from pending payment updates. The money should have been entered at the beginning of the year, but Congress rejected the previous decree-law that collected these deliveries on account. The PP then voted against since, he said, the Executive had included them in a decree ‘bus’ that many other measures that Alberto Núñez Feijóo did not share.
Although the groups had not advanced their support, the decree has ended up dating broad support. They have only voted against Vox and Junts. The deputy of Compromís àgueda Micó, now in the mixed group, has refrained.
The decree that declares of public interest some cultural events such as spring Sound or the year Xacobeo, an initiative of the Ministry of Culture, which has supported virtually the entire Chamber Except Vox and Micó, which has been abstained again.
Of the laws that came from the Senate, the most important was the Public Health Agency, which already suffered a defeat in Congress months ago and that the PP tried to modify in the Upper House with several amendments. Those of Feijóo have managed to save four of them thanks among other things to the abstention of the PSOE. One of those amendments seeks that the appointment of that institution goes through the Interterritorial Council, where the PP communities have a majority. With that amendment, the party is convinced that it will be able to prevent this position from falling on Fernando Simón, current director of the Coordination Center for Alerts and Health Emergencies. In recent months it has been speculated that the Minister of Health, Mónica García, thinks of who became one of the main faces of the fight against pandemic for that position. The agency is the first law that the Ministry of Mónica García in the Legislature is approved.
One of the main measures that have come forward of this plenary has not departed from the government but from the parliamentary groups: the reform of the Congress regulation that seeks to sanction the ultra -right agitators who boycott the work of parliamentary journalists daily. The reform has been approved with the support of the investiture block after a process of several months and is now pending that the Congress table develops it. The plans of the Chamber’s presidency sought that the new sanctioning mechanism is in force with the entry of the new parliamentary course.
The PSOE has defended after the voting on Tuesday the 42 initiatives that have been approved during the Legislature in front of the attempt of the right to show the weakness of the government. Sanchez has already pledged to return the decree of the blackout in September. In the new course there are several pending draft reforms, such as the reduction of working hours and the reform of the justice of the Ministry of Félix Bolaños. And a battle still unsolved within the coalition to activate parental permits, one of the most important electoral buzas for the left.
Source: www.eldiario.es
