Sumar has achieved the five ministerial portfolios to which he aspired in his negotiation with the PSOE, earning the resignation of Equality in powers and political content. At the same time, in the dialogue with the president-elect, Pedro Sánchez, the acting vice president Yolanda Díaz demanded a shield for the advances in rights achieved by the Ministry of Equality, which passes into the hands of the PSOE, in the previous legislature. The issue is not minor because within the PSOE two feminist sensitivities coexist, especially respect for the Trans law. On the one hand, there are the socialists who supported the previous trans law processed in Congress in 2018 and 2019, which was not approved due to the dissolution of the chambers in February of that year, and on the other hand, classic feminism – which is defined himself as radical – who opposes this recognition of trans identity. Given this internal tension within the socialists, Díaz negotiated with Sánchez that the assumption by the socialists of the Equality portfolio could not mean steps backwards in the approved legislation.
At the same time, Sumar keeps intact the powers of the Unidas Podemos alliance in the previous legislature, renouncing Universities, which is integrated into the Ministry of Science, and gaining Health, in which Mónica García will serve, and whose main objective is to apply the government agreement to reduce waiting lists and improve the material and personnel provision of the public health system.
One of Sumar’s objectives in the negotiation of this new coalition Government was to improve the structure of the second levels, the secretaries of State, since these are the ones that attend the meetings of the so-called commission of undersecretaries, where the agenda of the Council of Ministers. In the previous Government, Podemos was in a position of clear inferiority since the Ministries of Consumption and Universities lacked that structure. Neither of them had secretaries of state – while the socialist portfolios had at least one – so they had no representation on the commission of undersecretaries. In the new Government, not only do all ministries have secretaries of State in charge, but the second vice presidency of the Ministry of Labor will have two – one for employment and the other for social economy – instead of one, as it had until now. Yolanda Díaz’s portfolio will put all the emphasis on reducing the working day and completing the expansion of labor rights that began with the labor reform, with special attention to a new labor statute for the 21st century and a new regulation of the dismissal.
Ernest Urtasun, head of Culture, will be tasked with developing the labor models of a sector doomed to precariousness, as well as the reform of Inaem, among other pending tasks, while Pablo Bustinduy, head of Social Rights, will have to complete the new family law and deploy family leave plans, while assuming the agenda of the previous Ministry of Consumer Affairs. Finally, Sira Rego will coordinate childhood and youth policies in her new ministry, previously distributed among the portfolios of Education, Universities, Social Rights and Equality.
For his part, Podemos spokesperson Pablo Fernández called it a “serious mistake” that “Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz have thrown out the purple formation of the Government.”
