Three weeks after the Government managed to carry out its tax reform, after a bizarre parliamentary day that included the suspension for hours of the presentation that was to incorporate the amendments to give time for an agreement, the approval of an amendment promoted by the PP and Junts to once again suspend, against the Executive’s criteria, the application of the tax on electricity generation runs the risk of finding itself in a similar situation. Popular sources fear a possible suspension of the Ecological Transition commission to definitively approve the presentation to impose a veto on the measure that was not achieved this Monday, due to the absence of a socialist deputy.
This Tuesday, we will begin to test whether the PP’s fears that the Government, through the PSOE and Sumar in Congress, will try to block the processing of the law to modify the CO2 emissions trading system, in which This Monday PP and Junts managed to introduce an amendment that also had the support of PNV, ERC and Vox. At 3 p.m., the president of the Ecological Transition commission, Cristina Narbona, has called the table and popular sources fear that it is to suspend the meeting of the commission scheduled for this Thursday where the report of the presentation in which it appears was to be voted on. an amendment that this Monday the Government tried to veto without success.
It could have been done because the Chamber’s regulations give the Government the power to veto any amendment included in a bill when it entails an increase in credits or a decrease in budgetary income, as is the case with the suspension agreed by PP and Junts of the tax on electricity generation, which would go from 7 to 0% and the State would stop earning around 1.5 billion, according to parliamentary sources.
This Monday, the Government made a first attempt to veto the freezing of a tax that the PP estimates will also mean savings of 400 million for households. It was in the presentation that processed the bill for the new emissions trading system, in which, however, the absence of one of the two PSOE deputies, among the five who had to decide it, led to a tie between two votes to one. favor of the veto by the Government – one from the PSOE and another from Sumar – compared to two others from the PP.
However, the regulation allows the Government to veto “at any time” the processing of amendments such as that of the PP and Junts and this is what popular sources believe can still happen. In the shortest term, if Narbonne decides this Tuesday to suspend Thursday’s Ecological Transition commission. In the more medium term and more unlikely, the Government would have another possibility if the bill returned to Congress after passing through the Senate, although to do so amendments would have to have been introduced that the PP could block with its absolute majority so that its amendment with Junts will be safe.