The PP makes a pre-election sprint and tries to change 70 norms at once

PalmaA race against time for the PP to push through the maximum possible legislative changes before the elections. Their main obstacle is the slowness of bill processing in Parliament. To overcome it, they have devised some solutions: an abuse of the decree-law figure, which the Constitutional Court criticized last Friday in a ruling, and the stuffing of legislative initiatives with amendments that have nothing to do with them. But with the processing of the law to accelerate strategic projects, the popular party has gone too far: they have submitted 88 amendments affecting up to 70 different norms, most of them unrelated to strategic projects. Furthermore, they have introduced some of the agreements with Vox against Catalan and immigration.

The volume of amendments and the diversity of issues they cover have outraged both the opposition and the Parliament's legal advisors, who have complained to the groups. According to ARA Balears' count, the PP's amendments affect 67 laws, decree-laws, and legislative decrees, and three ministerial orders. Of the 88, 72 have nothing to do with the object of the law. Vox's amendments must be added to these, as they have submitted 12 and none are about strategic projects. Government sources explain that they are negotiating with the far-right to get as many amendments approved as possible. For now, however, they have only formalized an agreement on measures that eliminate the Catalan requirement for certain public service positions and for teachers in very hard-to-fill posts, to lower the level of demand to obtain the high school diploma, to restrict aid to newcomers, and to create the Anti-Occupation Office. The PP thus formalizes four of the agreements it closed with Vox in exchange for the 2025 budgets.

Profound reforms

Government sources admit that the processing of the Decree of urgent measures to accelerate strategic projects as a bill has served to introduce initiatives that could not have been approved within the legal timeframe and form. This is the case of the second law of administrative simplification. The first vice-president and Minister of Economy and Finance, Antoni Costa, had announced his intention to move forward with it, but it is late. Therefore, he will do it through an amendment to the project acceleration law, which consists of 43 articles and an additional provision, all on administrative simplification. The PP does not hide it. In fact, it has also submitted an amendment to modify the title of the bill, which now has 35 articles, and will go from being called 'bill of urgent measures to accelerate strategic projects that contribute to the economic transformation of the Balearic Islands' to adding: 'And other measures of administrative simplification and rationalization'. Executive sources explain that the processing of this second simplification law would have dragged on until the end of the legislature, and they had no guarantees that it would move forward. Thus, they gain room for maneuver.

In this regard, the PP has also presented amendments affecting taxation, modifying regulations on housing and tourism, and even carrying out a structural reform of the Tax Agency of the Balearic Islands (ATIB). In parallel, they propose that a certain number of Local Police positions be reserved for ex-military personnel. A proposal that Vox has also made, although the parties assure that they have not agreed on it. "This is not legislating through the back door, as has been said," assures a source from the Executive. "It is an established practice, it was done in the last legislature, and if the left puts obstacles in the way, it is because they are trying to penalize us," he adds.

The left-wing parties in the parliamentary arc protested from the outset against what they consider an excess of untimely amendments by the PP. Among other issues, because it hinders the oversight of the Government's legislative action: although they can negotiate amendments, the left loses analytical and negotiation power over amendments on such diverse issues.

At first, the groups jumped on the PP's bandwagon and presented their own amendments unrelated to the purpose of the law. But finally, MÉS per Mallorca requested their withdrawal in a letter addressed to the Board. After the Parliament's lawyers agreed, the PSIB has withdrawn part of its amendments on its own initiative, and Més per Menorca has also renounced its own. In addition, the party led by Lluís Apesteguia has warned the PP that, if it does not withdraw the amendments unrelated to the purpose of the law, it plans to challenge them in the Constitutional Court.