In the Government there is a rush to speed up the legislature and pending commitments.
Great hurry.
And the priority objectives are focused these days, very urgently and with express procedures, on resolving various issues, blocked or slowed down, related to Justice and Catalonia.
The PSOE and Unidas Podemos have closed and registered a series of 11 amendments that modify several very relevant articles and aspects of the Penal Code and the organic law of the Judiciary on Friday, via emergency route.
These that will be seen and endorsed between Monday and Tuesday in the presentation of the Justice commission to reach their approval in plenary session on Thursday in Congress, with the idea that their final ratification in the Senate is before the end of month.
The two partners of the Executive justify the need and speed of these reforms in the face of the "blockade and kidnapping" of the PP of Feijóo of the main judicial bodies of the country, but also to "return" Catalonia to a normal scenario.
Vox and Ciudadanos put pressure on the PP to carry out a motion of no confidence.
The plenary session of Congress on Thursday 15, the penultimate of this period of sessions and this year, was scheduled to resolve some postponed issues and, in principle and in theory, eliminate the crime of sedition from the Penal Code and replace it with another disorder aggravated publics.
That demand was a minimum approach of ERC at the time, to resolve the situation of a series of convicted and escaped separatists for the independence process in Catalonia.
However, it was later completed with the requirement to also review the crime of embezzlement, which is more complex and sensitive, since it can affect corrupt politicians.
This has raised all kinds of suspicions not only in the right-wing opposition, but also among other members of the Executive and among various socialist territorial barons.
More information
Keys to the express reforms of the Penal Code: from embezzlement to illicit enrichment and other novelties
The crimes of embezzlement and sedition, before and after the proposed legal modifications
The PSOE and Unidas Podemos have not been shy about these criticisms or misgivings.
Upside down.
They intend to take advantage of the political moment and give a rush at the end of the course.
In their amendments, negotiated with discretion these days, they have brought together some promises hitherto neglected and, at the same time, they seek to send a forceful political message to the opposition, and in particular to the PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
The president, Pedro Sánchez, felt very badly about Feijóo's threat on Tuesday, during the celebrations of the 44th anniversary of the Constitution, where he warned that he would not agree to anything in this legislature with this Government.
The Executive took good note, chose not to cower and raised the order.
Patxi López was the leader who appeared on Friday to argue the reasons now for these reforms in a hurry.
The socialist spokesman in Congress summarized the essence of the changes implemented in "strengthening the fight against corruption and unblocking the judicial bodies in compliance with the Constitution to restore and return normality to the highest institutions."
However, he quickly focused on the attitude of an "unprecedented" PP, outside of all democratic reality" and which he dismissed as "anti-system and without a sense of State" for not wanting to agree to this revision of the constitutional charges.
This Saturday, the Socialist Party spokesperson, Pilar Alegría,
In theory, it was not contemplated, but the PSOE and UP took advantage of their contacts these days to reflect on the stagnation of the conservative sector to the appointments now in the Constitutional Court, which joins the four years extended by the General Council of the Judiciary.
Thus, they introduced an amendment that changes the method of election of these magistrates, particularly if they do not fulfill their mandate in a timely manner.
In the new procedure, they eliminate the three-fifths majority if the process is frozen, they suppress the verification for the magistrates at the proposal of the Government and they give them deadlines, of days, to do their work.
That exit is well regarded by other usual allies of the Executive in Parliament and it will go ahead without problems, but it enervates the judicial world and the opposition.
Patxi López did not want to delve into the meaning and content of five other amendments presented in this case by ERC, one of its recurring and most relevant partners in Parliament, to modify the crime of embezzlement.
These modifications review the range of penalties for the crime and once again focus on whether those affected by this classification are accused of an action that may or may not have personal gain.
In the ERC proposal, about which the PSOE publicly denies having even negotiated any changes and which UP admits to knowing about the contacts of the Socialists with the Republicans, the Catalan formation proposes reducing the sentences from six months to three years if they do not the personal benefit or that of a third party is credited.
López assured that he did not know anything formally about what ERC requires there,
which has in its leading cadres and media convicted of embezzlement during their actions before the illegal referendum of 1-O.
He set, yes, two red lines that advanced as insurmountable: "That there is no benefit to prosecuted or convicted of corruption and that any arbitrary or improper use of public funds must be punished."
Fight against corruption
In ERC they emphasize that they are a party that has always stood out for its fight against corruption and that now they do not seek to soften this crime, but to differentiate behaviors.
The Republican Party rejects that those convicted of the
process
can be equated, as was the case until now with the embezzlement reform of the PP Government in 2015, to politicians or mayors who use resources, cards, cars or public money for personal matters.
Thus, they unlink the impulse to the illegal referendum of 1-O from institutions or public administrations.
Those responsible for the PSOE, Unidas Podemos or En Comú Podem were asked if this way of reducing embezzlement could ultimately open the window for those convicted of different parties in cases such as Kitchen
,
ERE
or
Gürtel
They can see their sentences reduced.
Faced with this question, they referred to the fact that they have to study the ERC text, its consequences and its implications well with their legal teams.
From the direction of UP, it was specified that the PSOE guaranteed them in private that the former Andalusian president, the socialist José Antonio Griñán, could never be favored by this initiative over his sentence to jail by the ERE.
UP, however, does not trust.
López affirmed that he did not know anything about these amendments and ERC sources specified that the official negotiation on the transactions to their proposals have not yet begun.
There isn't much room either.
The partners of the coalition and the progressive majority of the Congress defend that this proposal goes along the lines of helping to defuse the political and social conflict in Catalonia,
like others that have already been carried out in this mandate.
The right-wing opposition calls them a "tailor-made suit" to perpetuate themselves in power.
All these amendments were registered in Congress on Friday and now there is a deadline until Monday to negotiate transactions with other parties in the constitution of the paper.
On Tuesday the Justice commission is already summoned to accept or not these alterations, although the groups have the option of transacting
in extremis
alternative solutions in the same plenary session next Thursday.
If the reform goes ahead then, the Senate will have two weeks to ratify the new Penal Code before the end of the year.
The plans of the signatory parties only contemplate that option, although the measures have stung, and a lot, in the opposition, which this Friday unleashed its most alarming reactions.
The PP, Vox and Ciudadanos denounced the substance and forms of these proposals.
Feijóo published a tweet in which he anticipated that if he governs he will repeal those changes and now his party is studying which ones to appeal to the Constitutional Court and also bring some of these complaints to the European Union.
In the afternoon, the PP leader called Sánchez "the most authoritarian president of democracy."
The spokeswoman in Congress, Cuca Gamarra, compiled her radical opposition to all those approaches in which "Sánchez is capable of anything to stay in the Government" and there she put from "the marketing of express reforms to deliver the Penal Code to her partners” until placing former ministers and former senior officials of La Moncloa in the Constitutional Court.
Vox and Ciudadanos asked the PP to join the presentation of a motion of censure headed by a neutral candidate.
All the opposition regretted that these important changes have been made in the middle of a bridge, between holidays, and with a succession of scandals to anesthetize society, but Inés Arrimadas raised her tone.
The leader of Ciudadanos branded Sánchez a "dictator's apprentice" when trying to "give democracy a self-coup from power" for the benefit of some partners whom she called all "criminals."
Arrimadas was even more disappointed with Feijóo's tweet than with Sánchez.
The Ciudadanos leader branded Sánchez a "dictator's apprentice" when trying to "give democracy a self-coup from power" for the benefit of some partners whom she called all "criminals."
Arrimadas was even more disappointed with Feijóo's tweet than with Sánchez.
The Ciudadanos leader branded Sánchez a "dictator's apprentice" when trying to "give democracy a self-coup from power" for the benefit of some partners whom she called all "criminals."
Arrimadas was even more disappointed with Feijóo's tweet than with Sánchez.
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