“You don’t already have it”, it seems that the PSOE thought to try to force the hinges of the parliamentary regulation and advance two weeks the start of the processing of the reform of the law of Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom -known as the law of only yes is yes – in the Congress Table and in the board of spokespersons. He saved the first obstacle, at the Table, with the support of PP and Vox, and the abstention of his partner, United We Can. Thus, he achieved the positive qualification of the initiative and the processing by way of urgency.
However, to introduce it in the plenary session on Tuesday the 21st, the approval of the urgent procedure was not enough. The PSOE did not have a quota – the groups have divided turns in each session, proportional to their number of deputies, to bring legislative initiatives to the plenary – and their only possibility is that ERC would resign theirs and all the spokespersons would give their consent to modify the agenda. It was not debated or voted on, because ERC rejected the possibility of giving up its place to the PSOE. The spokesman for United We Can, Pablo Echenique, would later clarify that his group would not have endorsed such a scam, but it was not even discussed after the refusal of the Republicans.
Since the first week of each month there is no plenary session in Congress, this means that the consideration of the reform will be debated from March 7 to 9, that is, in the middle of the week of 8-M. As if the matter was not sufficiently loaded with political tension, the PSOE will have to defend its unilateral reform 24 hours after the annual feminist demonstration.
The eloquent drawing of the wills that was seen yesterday, with PP and Vox supporting the urgent processing, Unidas Podemos abstaining and ERC refusing to cede its turn of initiative to the PSOE is an expression of the position in which partners and allies have settled of the socialists regarding this reform. While the Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, and the parliamentary group of Unidas Podemos demand that the PSOE sit down to negotiate the rectification of the amendment prepared by the Ministry of Justice led by Pilar Llop, ERC, EH Bildu and Más País have already anticipated –by the mouth of the deputies Gabriel Rufián, Oskar Matute and Íñigo Errejón, respectively– who will not support any reform that does not have the endorsement of Equality.
So the dilemma that opens up before the PSOE is to assume that it has the votes of the PP –and of the PNV, which has already said that the current wording of the reform seems appropriate– and push forward with them the reform of the law in full week of 8-M, or take advantage of the almost three weeks of margin available to try to reach an agreement with Podemos and Igualdad, which would also guarantee the favorable vote of the progressive allies and would mean a less traumatic political closure for those days .
In any case, the approval last week of the animal protection law of the Ministry of Social Rights of Ione Belarra, rectified by the PSOE in the hands of PP and Vox, broke the seal of variable geometry – leaning indistinctly on the right and the left as appropriate to the socialist interests–, which a sector of the PSOE has been demanding since the start of the legislature. For now, the position of Equality has been strengthened –by the alignment of the majority investiture groups and the support of Vice President Yolanda Díaz– after the PSOE’s unilateral offensive. The ball is still in the socialist feet, which touches it and touches it without leaving the center circle. The others watch and wait, displaying positional play.