New Spanish election date leaves more than 60 laws in the pipeline
Dozens of important regulations will have to wait until after the hastily-called general election in Spain
After a disastrous performance in the regional and municipal elections on May 28 which saw the governing Socialist party PSOE trounced nationwide by the conservative Partido Popular (PP), president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, sensationally announced that he has listened to the people and will bring forward the general elections from December to July 23.
The upshot of this decision is that the Plenary of the Congress of Deputies won’t be able to meet again until after the new government is sworn in, which will be in mid-August. As a result, more than 60 vital initiatives such as the 100-euro aid for families with dependents and the pioneering food waste law will be put on the backburner.
To make matters worse, all of the work that has been done to get the legislature this far will fall by the wayside and the clock will start from zero again after the call to the polls this summer.
Here are some of the most important reforms that are now on hold:
Families
One of the most contentious laws to be delayed, due to its importance for vulnerable families and the sheer amount of time it has taken councillors to reach an agreement, is the proposed Family Law.
The regulation would have awarded an allowance of 100 euros per month to the caregivers of children aged between 0 and three years and extended benefits to new types of families, like single mothers.
In addition, until the elections are over, there’ll be no 8-week parental leave for those with children under 8, nor will the five days of paid leave for caregivers be approved.
Food waste
The popular Food Waste Law only had to pass through the Senate to be definitively approved and had it been processed, Spain would have been the third European country, along with France and Italy, to legislate on the matter. Now, sadly, it will have to wait several months.
To counteract the huge amount of food Spanish households and businesses bin each year, the law would require all those employed in the food chain to develop a prevention plan to avoid waste, and unsold foods would be repurposed into other usable products. The plan also required restaurants to offer customers the option of taking home leftovers and supermarkets to allow shoppers to purchase out-of-date food at a lower price.
Parity
Another major blow is the delay to applying the new parity legislation, which sought to ensure by law that 40% of staff are women in the Government, on the boards of directors of large companies, electoral candidacies and constitutional bodies.
Mental health
Several mental health initiatives will also be sidelined, including the law which sought to guarantee minimum access to health and social care and the legislation that would ensure a minimum ratio of 18 psychiatrists, 18 clinical psychologists and 23 mental health nurses per 100,000 inhabitants. It also involved specialised training for suicide prevention for health personnel, among other things.
Customer service
The Customer Service Law was also very close to being ratified and was highly anticipated by the general public. If passed, this law would have limited customers’ telephone wait time to a maximum of three minutes and regulated the use of automated answering services.
Right to be forgotten
Another casualty of the rushed elections is the right to be forgotten, which President Sánchez promised would be passed before July. The right to be forgotten, known in Spanish as ‘el derecho al olvido oncológico’, ensures that people who have suffered from cancer and recovered from it do not have to declare it when taking out life insurance, buying a house or requesting a loan.
Prostitution
Ending prostitution was one of the great promises that the current PSOE government won’t now manage to fulfil either. The law – which imposed penalties of up to six years on pimps and fines for customers – has been mired in Congress for more than six months, and it looks like it will be staying there until the end of the summer.
And the list goes on
Between bills, parliamentary proposals and royal decrees, dozens more initiatives will fail to see the light of day for several months. Among them are the civil service law, the pension reform bill, the financial client defence law, the unemployment law for domestic workers, the film law and the forest firefighters law.
Image: Freepik
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