The PSOE and Podemos negotiate to avoid a break due to changes in the 'law of only yes is yes'

The negotiation within the coalition to try to agree on a reform of the

precipitated.

Pedro Sánchez has given a very clear instruction: the reform has to be closed now, this very week, to be presented in Congress.

The president has made it clear, and this is how his spokespersons have transferred it, that the reform is going to be registered as a bill, with or without the signature of United We Can.

A real challenge to the minority sector of the coalition after two months of fruitless negotiations.

That threat remains, but this Tuesday the two sectors lowered their tone a lot while discreetly intensified contacts, exchanges of papers and political conversations.

Sánchez was in the Council of Ministers with Irene Montero, who leads the negotiation on behalf of Equality, and with Yolanda Díaz, who is also involved in the talks.

Pilar Llop, Minister of Justice,

The problem continues where it has been for two months: there is an agreement that the sentences must be increased to return them to the previous scheme and thus avoid having low sentences in the future —the current reviews cannot be stopped—, but there is a technical discussion on how to do it.

The PSOE insists that its proposal keeps consent intact as the heart of the norm, because it does not touch article 178.1 where the

, but Podemos assures that by introducing violence or intimidation as a cause for major penalties, it is distorting the law.

More information

Questions and answers to understand what is happening with the 'law of only yes is yes'

Negotiations are being made on this formula and no one rules out that an intermediate way is found to do the same —increase the penalties— overcoming the objection of Podemos.

But if it is not achieved in a few days, the PSOE will shoot alone.

The risk of rupture of the Government there would be very evident, but the two sectors insist that they do not contemplate this scenario.

All the parties rule out a rupture, which they assure, would not benefit anyone just four months before the municipal and regional elections and also in a year of general elections.

Podemos, always the most belligerent in its public demonstrations, has been softening its position since Monday morning, when the Justice proposal was made public to raise the maximum and minimum penalties and return to those that existed before the reform of the Penal Code for Avoid low sentences for future crimes.

This Tuesday, after Equality publicly opened to modifying the penal part of the text, several party leaders appealed to the need to "protect" the Government and reach a solution.

02:15

The Government defends making adjustments to the law "Only yes is yes"

The Government spokesperson and Minister of Territorial Policy, Isabel Rodríguez, during the press conference after the Council of Ministers, on January 17. Photo: EFE |

Video: Europa Press

The ministries involved, Justice and Equality, were working to reach a solution that, for the moment, has not yet occurred.

Justice insists that there is no other legal formula, except for the one that raises penalties to avoid future low sentences for rapists, but Equality maintains that consent would be called into question and, therefore, would affect the essence of the law.

Justice proposes adding a section that increases the penalties "if the aggression was committed using violence or intimidation on a victim whose will has been annulled for any reason."

The socialist part of the Government defends that it is a proposal with legal rigor and undertakes to touch only that part of the

"We have worked, at the proposal of the president and the PSOE, on up to four criminal reforms that maintain consent as the center of the Criminal Code and they have been rejected," explained the Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, in the corridors of the Senate, who stressed that in Right now there is this "discrepancy" with the socialist wing.

Sources around her criticize that the majority shareholder has not moved since the first conversations in December and reiterate that the penal reform does not solve the problem of the current reductions.

Equality is committed to a plan of urgent measures that serve to implement the law, such as having specialized courts or more psychologists and police officers to guarantee the protection of victims.

A formula, they defend,

The second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, leader of United We Can in the Executive, also wanted to send a message of calm.

“I will always take care of the government coalition”, she affirmed after being “sure” of “reaching an agreement”, “yes, preserving consent”, she pointed out.

After having avoided making statements on Monday (sources from her department only pointed out that they were looking for a way out in coordination with Equality), the head of Labor expressly recognized on Tuesday the work that the person in charge of Equality does "for the widening of the women's rights" and closed ranks by assuring that we are "before a very good law."

Meanwhile, the government spokesperson, the socialist Isabel Rodríguez, defended the reform, although she avoided the harshest tones against Podemos.

“The best way to defend the law is to carry out all the technical adjustments.

In no case is it considered addressing consent ”, she assured after the Council of Ministers.

Backing of the Barons

Contrary to what happened with the penal reforms of sedition and embezzlement, Pedro Sánchez has the support of the territorial leaders of the PSOE, who for months have been demanding a legislative response to the sentence reductions for almost 300 sexual offenders and the release of more than twenty as a result of the entry into force of the

last October.

The barons agree that it has become the main problem for the Socialists and, therefore, a threat to the re-election of the regional presidents of the PSOE in the May elections.

"Rectifying is wise", Emiliano García-Page valued the decision of the President of the Government to avoid future low sentences for sex offenders.

“How many sentences does it take for someone in the ministry that has promoted the law to start thinking that, perhaps, they could have been wrong?

How many sentences?

When will we reach a thousand sentences and a thousand rapists on the street?" The president of Castilla-La Mancha attacked Podemos.

"For a long time I have been demanding that something be done with this law because it is producing totally unintended effects on the part of those who made it, but obviously it is poorly done," stressed the president of Aragon, Javier Lambán, also a socialist.

"It seems good to me that it be reformed and I think we all agree,

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber