• Moncloa government angers Podemos by not allowing Belarra to explain the family law, one of its star initiatives
  • Coalition The barons of the PSOE regret going to 28-M "with the ballast of Podemos" in Moncloa

The calendar is marking the last bars of the legislature. It's time to decide what is driven and what is kept in the drawer. With the connotation that in a coalition government what is approved and who presents it implies having political gains. The Council of Ministers approved yesterday in the second round the draft of the family law, one of the star measures of the Ministry of Social Rights piloted by Ione Belarra. Knowing since the end of last week that the regulations would see the light this Tuesday, from Social Rights they contacted La Moncloa to ask that Belarra appear before the press and shell the norm. But in the presidential complex they did not consider it opportune. A decision that generated discomfort in Unidas Podemos.

It is not the first time recently that a purple minister is left out of a press conference when the background and, even logic, invited her presence. It happened in the run-up to 8-M, when Irene Montero, Minister of Equality, did not come out as in other years, but three socialist ministers who capitalized on the feminist agenda of the Executive. Circumstance that feeds even more anger within Unidas Podemos.

"They use Moncloa as if it were their farmhouse", is the reflection that they expose from Unidas Podemos in allusion to the PSOE and the non-presence yesterday of Belarra. The Minister of Social Rights, faced with the impossibility of selling one of her main laws, posted a video on her social networks before the press conference began, shelling all the details of her regulations. The official press release of his ministry made clear the discomfort and confrontation with the PSOE: "The Government approves the Law of Families of Belarra that recognizes all families and addresses the emergency of conciliation with new permits." Law with the surname of minister. A communiqué that included statements by Belarra, under the following qualification: "In statements sent to the press".

In the purple space they consider that the law of families is a "very important initiative", "of weight" and that deserved the presence of Belarra. They also recall that José Luis Escrivá, Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, already appeared last week for the pension reform, as today, because then there was an extraordinary and almost monographic Council of Ministers on the subject.

In Unidas Podemos they believe that the PSOE has already openly ignited the electoral machinery and the press room of La Moncloa is one more asset to use in their interests. "They [the PSOE] are already campaigning," reflect the sources consulted, who point out that the Family Law is a norm that has not led to the clashes or frictions of the depth of other texts, "there has not been an ideological struggle" as in other laws. "It doesn't make sense," they repeat in the purple space in the absence of their ministers.

A circumstance that, in addition, contrasts with the presence and prominence that La Moncloa decided to give to Yolanda Díaz during the celebration of the failed motion of censure promoted by Vox a few days ago. The second vice-president enjoyed, in collusion with the Socialists, her own focus and profile.

In the presidential complex, to justify Belarra's absence in the press room, they cling to the argument they have already used on other occasions: it is a law that passed for the second time through the Council of Ministers and that Belarra already appeared on the first occasion. Isabel Rodríguez, spokesperson for the Executive, also appealed that in the norm "there are no substantive changes" with respect to the first version. And, above all, he defended the presence of Calviño and Escrivá, and not Belarra, because these ministers carried matters "of relevance and entity so that the Government decides that the priority is to address the socioeconomic issues that are part of the concerns of the Spaniards, decisions as important as the extension of the Iberian exception to gas or the reform of pensions ".

It happens that this argument of La Moncloa that a minister does not appear, even if it is an emblematic law of his department and the Government, if he arrives in the second round to the Council of Ministers is not always the case. It is arbitrary. For example, on the seventh of February, the Law creating the State Public Health Agency was in the second round and Minister Carolina Darias did appear. In September 2022, the head of Justice appeared despite the fact that the Law Regulating the Protection of Persons Who Report on Regulatory and Anti-Corruption Violations was in the second round, among other examples.

Government crisis

The truth is that just 24 hours after Pedro Sánchez executed his fifth government crisis, without touching the ministries of Unidas Podemos to preserve the coalition, the message sent by the socialist sector is that they have the upper hand and that the role of Unidas Podemos will be relegated and corseted to what they dictate.

Pedro Sánchez, in recent weeks, is making a profuse defense of the coalition and its continuity, knowing that it is the only way to try to stay in La Moncloa. "A coalition that has been able to weave agreements with social agents, with multiple political formations, with the other Member States of the European Union and that has been able to carry out 200 laws in Parliament," said the President of the Government on Monday when he announced Héctor Gómez and José Manuel Miñones as new ministers. Defense of the coalition but making it clear who is in charge and who is the majority partner, especially now that the Council of Ministers are a great electoral showcase.

And while PSOE and Unidas Podemos continue to fight, the Socialists agreed with the PP the appointment of four new members of the Council of State. They are the former deputy secretary general of the PSOE Elena Valenciano; the former Minister of Labor of the PP, Juan Carlos Aparicio; the former delegate of the Government and former mayor of La Coruña, the socialist Francisco Javier Losada and the former president of La Rioja, the popular Pedro Sanz.

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