The calendar marks February 14, 2025 as the limit of the Catalan legislative period, and President Pere Aragonès shows no signs of wanting to bring forward elections for now. On the contrary, in the ERC they are committed to exhausting the remaining 14 months of their mandate, focusing on showcasing the government's work and conveying the idea of responsible leadership, the cards they will play in re-election want. However, this story lags on the legislative side: the government has to work as a clear minority – it only makes up 33 of the 135 deputies in parliament – and its room for maneuver is minimal. To the lack of stable partners is now added temporary pressure: 13 regulations promoted by the Generalitat – including some very relevant such as the tax on cruise ships or the regulation of tourist housing – are still pending in the Chamber and, if they are not approved quickly, they will expire when the elections are called. They are also competing in the race for approval with the 42 legislative proposals sponsored by the caucus benches.
This year Parliament will have held 20 regular plenary sessions. If this pace is maintained in 2024, the debate and adoption of 55 regulations in progress would have to fit in around twenty sessions, right between draft laws (the 13 promoted by the executive) and legislative proposals (the 42 proposed by the political groups). ). In addition, this calculation does not take into account the Generalitat's budgets, which will consume a large part of it at the beginning of the year. There is also the possibility that legislative decrees may need to be validated in the face of emergencies such as drought.
In total, Parliament passed 23 laws in the three years of its legislative period; In the final year of the term, they will try to approve twice as many: 55.
In the list of initiatives of the Aragonès government that are still pending approval, there are some important ones, such as the regulation to introduce a tax on large ships docking in Catalan ports or the regulation of tourist apartments. The one that regulates the film library of Catalonia and has completely passed the first debate on the 18th is in the queue of others with greater advances in its processing, such as: B. Democratic Memory or Audiovisual Communication, both in the hearing phase.
The draft law on external actions and relations with the EU, which passed the first test in plenary last week, is paradigmatic and illustrates the precarious arithmetic situation that burdens the Aragonès executive after it broke with junts in October 2022 and decided to enter in To continue in solitary confinement. The amendments presented by PP, Vox and Ciudadanos as a whole were unsuccessful. The PSC has allowed the process to proceed, but cautions against ensuring that there are no conflicts with the State Department.
The norm aims to create a group of officials who will support the Catalan executive's network of delegations abroad. ERC needs, assuming the support of the CUP or En Comú Podem, that at least the Socialists (33 MPs) or Junts (32) agree. The Republicans are moving between a PSC that would prevent any attempt to give the measure an independent aspect and some former partners who were installed in the tough opposition and initially headed the foreign action department and did not include this item in their roadmap had.
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The broken ERC-Junts pact
At the beginning of their term, they agreed with a coalition government, ERC and Junts on a legislative plan that envisaged the approval of 50 bills. The Republicans alone have revised it downwards (33). For example, they sent the regulation on funeral services or the electoral law itself (Catalonia operates under national law) to the trash can, but they also made new promises. One of them is the rule that creates the new civil service: the Generalitat claims that it is the ideal time to process it due to the “process of rationalization and consolidation of personnel” that public administrations are experiencing and “the maturity in “ “External measures” of the government. In order to shorten deadlines that could drag on for months, ERC has asked the parliamentary committee to urgently deal with the law.
But not all of the Republicans' attempts to gain room for maneuver have been successful: last week, the speaker's panel rejected their proposal to speed up the procedures for the first half of January. In the ranks of the ERC, reference was made to the budgets, but also to the draft law an autonomous initiative in Congress to abolish the statute of limitations for cases of pedophilia.
The parliamentary groups are also under pressure in the remaining 14 months of the legislative period. Table sources assume that “there is no time for everything” and that certain modifications have the greatest chance of success. The statute of limitations article, registered last week, is the latest item on a list of 42 legislative proposals in the queue, all of which are in various stages of development. There is, for example, the reform of the law of the former presidents of the Generalitat and the Parliament, in order to change the established privileges, or the one that aims to ban Correbous (festivals with bulls and heifers).
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