The absolute majority of the Popular Party in the Senate is not only a headache for the socialists because it can delay central government initiatives such as the processing of the Amnesty law. It can also promote uncomfortable laws that end up on the agenda of the Congress of Deputies and test the strength of the majority that made the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez possible.
This is the case of a proposed law that seeks to eliminate the inheritance and donation tax throughout Spain, against which the central government presented an appeal yesterday.
It is not only a proposal that the popular people have put into practice in most of the communities it governs, but also a way that in the Lower House it can get the votes of parties such as Junts or the PNB, which are in tune with the PP on these issues. And, for the popular, this is the key. Break most of the investiture.
After the presentation of this initiative, the Central Government, as it already did with the proposal on VAT for hairdressing salons – paralyzed by the decision of the former Minister of Justice -, required the President of the Senate not to admitted with the argument that it represents an economic loss for the Central Government, and the Constitution authorizes the Executive to veto initiatives that affect the revenues or expenses of the general budget of the State.
Just yesterday, the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, assured the press conference after the Council of Ministers that the initiative is of “absolutely flagrant unconstitutionality” and warned that, if the Senate Bureau ignores the request , the Government will initiate an appeal before the Constitutional Court to stop this parliamentary procedure.
An argument rejected by the sources of the PP in the Senate, who remember that the proposal establishes its entry into force in the next financial year, precisely to avoid this possibility. The sources consulted recall that there is abundant jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court, which establishes that the damage must refer to the budget in force, “without being able to accept a veto from the Executive on proposals that, in the future, could affect public revenues and expenses, since this would mean an expansion of the power of veto incompatible with the role that the Constitution itself gives to the chambers in legislative matters”.
