The Government parks the memory law for now to focus on the economic agenda

The processing of the democratic memory law will have to wait. At least a few weeks. The Government is by no means assured of its approval due to the lack of parliamentary support, and specifically due to the total clash with ERC. For the moment, the Executive prefers focus on your financial agenda and in carrying out the commitments made with Brussels. Yes, promises not to give up to the memory bill: it will not keep it in a drawer, nor will it paralyze it, it will continue its “normal” processing, without placing emphasis on it between now and the end of 2021. In ERC they recognize that “they suggested“to Pedro Sánchez’s Cabinet to cool down the debate because otherwise it had no chance of prospering.

The Government has set three “priorities“Between now and the end of the year, sources from Moncloa had an impact on Tuesday: to complete the approval of the General State Budgets for 2022, the change in the pension system and the labor reform. Those are the three objectives marked in red, and two of them have them fully channeled. The accounts will come out of the plenary session of Congress this week without surprises – this Tuesday the agreement with ERC was tied, which achieved that 6% of the catalog of the large audiovisual production companies has to be in co-official languages. and the pension reform It is also closed with the Republicans and with the PNV after the agreement was reached with the unions last week. The new labor market legislation is still in the works. social dialogue table, and the Government’s challenge is that the employers enter into consensus. Yolanda Díaz’s ministry still has a few more days of margin to close the reform, before translating it into a royal decree law that Congress will have to validate within a maximum period of one month from its publication in the BOE.

Those three “priorities” are already “on track“In the opinion of Moncloa. But the memory law is not yet. Last Wednesday the deadline for the presentation of partial amendments was closed, so the next step should be the call for the presentation, a discussion in which they participate all parties, and once the report is approved, the debate is raised to the commission, which will integrate the partial modifications in its opinion, which will have to be approved by the plenary session before traveling to the Senate. But PSOE and United We Can play with the times and delay the processing until the support is achieved or else let the initiative die.

Sources from the PSOE leadership in the Lower House confirm to this newspaper that, for now, will not advance in the parliamentary process. Not before the end of the year. At least, that’s the instruction today. From the Ministry of the Presidency, led by Félix Bolaños, it is emphasized that there is no “paralysis” of the law, nor is it kept in any drawer: the “normal processing“, although they admit that the next step has not yet been fixed, the appointment of the rapporteurs and the start of the deliberations between the groups for the incorporation of changes to the articles.” Let’s say that now the text begins its parliamentary course, and it is not postponed nor is the law permanently parked, although we are aware of the difficulties to carry it out, they are there “, government sources explain. Of course, they insist from Moncloa that the” priority “is placed on the economic laws, on which the receipt of European funds In fact, before the end of the year the Council of Ministers intends to submit the new audiovisual law to Parliament, once an agreement has been reached with the Republicans.

“We have suggested that they put the memory law on standby, because if not, it did not come out“, they point for their part from the direction of the Catalan independence formation in the lower house.

ERC: “We cannot legitimize this new trap”

Socialists and purple agreed last week 30 amendments to the memory project, but they did not satisfy at all ERC, the main partner of the Government’s legislature, together with the PNV. Republicans insist that the law must declare Francoism illegal, and that it have legal effects, and that article 2 of the 1977 amnesty law, which allowed the “impunity“of the repressors of the dictatorship. They do not renounce, at least for now, either of the two requests. The Government, however, remarks that its red line is precisely the norm of 1977, because it was a conquest of the left in the Transition, and just with one of the amendments agreed between the two members of the coalition, it was sought to guide the interpretation of the courts, by warning that the amnesty law must be read in accordance with the provisions of international law, which stipulates that the crimes against humanity, genocide and torture “are considered imprescriptible and not amnestiable”.

ERC has already voted against the historical memory law promoted by the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in 2007, and ensures that it is willing to do so now with the bipartisan project: the current text, stated the main ERC negotiator, former deputy Joan Tardà, it is “a makeup from 14 years ago and it stays in the epidermis. “” During all this time we have denounced this shame. They told us we were radicals. We are convinced that a good part of the trivialization Of the human rights that exist today, even the rise of fascism, has to do with the fact that Francoism has not closed well. We cannot legitimize this new trap, “said the former ERC spokesman in the Lower House in an interview in ‘El Periódico de España’.

The Government, in any case, understands that it is now urgent to carry out measures for the “revitalization of the economy“and comply with the commitments made with Brussels in the recovery plan for the release of European funds. After all, Moncloa and the PSOE continue to insist that the unfavorable trend for Sánchez in the polls (except for the CIS ) will be reversed in the remaining two years of the legislature thanks to the fact that the economic rebound will end up being felt in the pocket of the citizens.

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The memory law, however, is one of the great projects for the coalition, and if it were finally shipwrecked, it would be a serious blow. Especially in the symbolic field, because the survival of the Executive is assured with the approval of the Budgets of 2022. It is a iconic norm for PSOE and United We Can, but also nuclear for ERC, which makes assignments difficult. At least for now.

The Government has not given order, as confirmed by parliamentary sources, to start the debate in presentation of the project. Who has to activate the process is the president of the Constitutional Commission, the socialist Patxi López. The body of Congress is facing the completion of the work of the subcommittee of the requested vote and would have to “look for gaps” to introduce the discussion. The commission table is also controlled by the PSOE and United We Can. “We don’t think anyone is interested get into a fight so nothing comes out“, reflect from the party leadership.