HORITZÓ ELECTORAL

The last ten days of the legislature

Parliament opens a long and final plenary session on Monday as parties rush through candidates

Marc Toro
2 min
Sessió plenària del Parlament posterior a la inhabilitació del president Torra.

Barcelona"This legislature has no more political course. It is coming to an end". Almost a year after Quim Torra uttered these words, and when three months ago he was disqualified as President of the Generalitat, the legislature is - now - about to end. On December 22nd Parliament will be dissolved and the acting President, Pere Aragonès, will sign the decree of convocation of the elections. These elections, if the pandemic does not worsen in an extreme way, will be held on February 14th. From this Saturday on, then, there are ten days left until the end of the twelfth autonomic legislature. During this period, exceptionally, there will be no changes in the Government, which has already been in office since Torra was convicted and which, with the covid-19 crisis as its main challenge, will continue as an interim government until a new government is formed after the elections.

The last few weeks in Parliament have seen frenetic activity. When the term of office was set to expire at the beginning of October, the parties found themselves unable to pass around fifty laws in five plenary sessions. The last one will start on Monday at 3 p.m., and will begin with the umpteenth monographic debate that Ciudadanos has promoted in recent years: this time, on corruption. The plenary session, which will last until Friday evening, will also discuss the validation or repeal of three decree-laws and the debate and final vote on three bills and two proposals. One of them will serve to modify the law against gender-based violence (2008), incorporating the recognition of transgender women and the obligation for parties to have protocols against aggressions and harassment and to suspend or expel from membership anyone who commits these acts.

The text will go forward by broad consensus, and will also approve the motion for resolution agreed on Wednesday by JxCat, ERC and the CUP to demand to the Spanish Parliament an amnesty law for the victims of retaliation of the Catalan independence bid. In a legislature marked by disagreement over independence, this will be the last sign of almost non-existent unity, especially on the road to the elections. The pre-campaign will most likely color the plenary session, especially in the last control session of the acting government.

The Government's pending issues

The Government has to finish defining the holiday restrictions plan, or make effective the payment of freelancers' subsidies, among others. And all of this while JxCat and ERC face some thorny issues, such as the eventual file to Alfred Bosch for the case of harassment in Foreign Affairs, or the unfulfilled commitment to reduce the accusations in the trials in which the Generalitat has been present against independentist activists. The Government will also have to decide - depending on the epidemiological indicators - whether to maintain the date of the elections. The only certainty in this sense is that the legislature will then be over. It has ten days of life left.

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