On Friday, the cabinet approved two decrees, one of which corrected 34 amendments to items of legislation that the Balearic Government (the Partido Popular) had voted for by mistake in parliament a fortnight ago.
These amendments, proposed by the far-right Vox, included support for giving Castellano at least equal weight with Catalan as a teaching language. When it was realised that all 25 members of the PP, who govern with a minority, had made the error, there was a request from the PP for a new vote; Vox weren't having this.
However, procedures being as they are, the government was able to dig itself out of its self-imposed hole by simply issuing a decree to nullify the mistake.
The other decree was approval of a previously approved decree - the government's much-publicised administrative simplification decree. The opposition parties had taken particular exception to provisions permitting legalisation of buildings and indeed potential development of new buildings in areas prone to flooding. The now new decree, considered by the opposition to have been "absolutely necessary" given what happened in Valencia, prohibits the construction of new housing and sensitive facilities in flood zones as well as legalisation of buildings.
When it comes to parliament giving its approval for these decrees, which is expected next week, the opposition has agreed to abstain on the new one for administrative simplification and vote in favour of the decree rectifying the errors. This amounts to the same thing, as both will receive parliamentary approval.
In return for supporting the second of these decrees, the government has agreed not to repeal the law of democratic memory (which Vox have been seeking).
Spokesperson for PSOE, Iago Negueruela, has accused Vox of trying to blackmail the PP and says: "We are starting a path to reconstruction of policies that the PP should never have agreed with Vox." For various reasons but the Castellano-Catalan question in particular, the PP can no longer count on Vox for parliamentary support. In reality this was never support built on sound foundations, and so it has proved.
As a consequence, there is no majority to approve the 2025 budget bill. This was withdrawn earlier this week, and the 2024 budget will have to roll over into next year unless some agreement can be found with the opposition.
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