Parliament's legislative backlog could mean that various items of legislation fail to make their way through the whole parliamentary procedure and onto the statute book before parliament is dissolved prior to the May election. There are some twenty items that have yet to be approved by the cabinet. Once this approval is given, the bills go to parliament for debate and ultimately for votes, assuming there is time and space for them to be scheduled.
Some of this legislation is still waiting on definitive drafting by the relevant ministries. Meanwhile, there is a series of bills that are making their way through parliament and which need to be passed. The most recent to be added to the list is the law on climate change, which the cabinet approved last week. Others include the farming and waste laws.
Of legislation which has yet to go to the cabinet, there are items related to tourism - the regulation of party boats (booze cruises), of all-inclusive hotels and of hotel star ratings. In the case of the latter, social clauses are to be included in star rating criteria, e.g. equal opportunities and staffing levels. It has been suggested, moreover, that there is to be a fuller tourism law rather than piecemeal reform of the existing law, one introduced by the Partido Popular in 2012.
As well as this tourism legislation, there are bills to do with, for instance, fire prevention, sustainable mobility, Balearic ports, health and addictions.
Under the current administration forty-five laws have so far been passed, four more than during the PP's 2011-2015 administration. In all there are in fact 83 items of legislation.
