The Senate, dominated with an absolute majority by the PP, will have a great role in this legislature and can become a fortress of the opposition against the Government that is vigilant. After the Upper House approved a modification of its own regulations at the request of the PP to try to delay the processing of the Amnesty law, the PP intends to approve a law that eliminates the inheritance and donation tax on large fortunes with a proposal Of law.
Against this initiative, the Council of Ministers has made a request to the Senate Board to revoke the decision it adopted to process the taking into consideration of this initiative, which also included that the State compensate the Autonomous Communities for the amount collected in the last fiscal year for that tax, as explained this Tuesday by the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños.
The minister has considered that the decision of the Board, dominated by the PP, is “absolutely flagrant unconstitutionality” and has warned that if the Senate board ignores the request, the Government will initiate the appeal before the Court. Constitutional Court to paralyze this parliamentary procedure. In this sense, Bolaños recalled that on November 16, the Executive already sent a letter to the president of the Chamber, Pedro Rollán, asking him to refrain from processing the proposal but that this had no effect.
To justify the unconstitutionality of the procedure, the minister has indicated that the measure has a budgetary impact of 2,800 million euros, an amount that he compared with the 2,520 million amount for scholarships in the last budget, which he defined as “the largest item of scholarships in the history of our democracy”.
And immediately afterwards he recalled that the Constitution “so alleged and so little read by the opposition”, in its article 134 section 6, establishes that “the Government’s consent is necessary for the Cortes Generales to process any rule that represents a reduction of budget revenues”. “Evidently this provision of the Constitution is being violated by the Senate committee,” concluded the minister, who has called on the Senate Committee to admit that the Government has the right to veto this procedure.
