The scant results, however, suggest all this hyperactivity is mucho ruido y pocas nueces (much ado about nothing). For Prime Minister Rajoy, who hailed the delayed approval of the 2017 budget as proof of his deal-making abilities within a fragile multiparty coalition, there remains the nagging doubt of whether he will be able to repeat the trick with this year’s budget. [...]
These parvenus — especially Podemos — are determined to strike down existing laws without proposing anything sensible in their place, he said. They call pointless plenary sessions, invite random experts to speak and deliver two-minute speeches tailor-made for Twitter. But their labor “has had no impact whatsoever on the lives of citizens.” [...]
Rajoy’s conservatives control just 137 seats in the 350-seat chamber, with the Socialists on 85 seats, Podemos and its allies on 71, and Ciudadanos on 32. That means any of the four big parties wanting to pass a law now needs the support of either two other big players, or one of them plus regional parties (which have become a less reliable source of support thanks to the Catalan independence crisis). [...]
Of all of the 41 bills Congress has passed so far in Rajoy’s second term — including those proposed by the opposition and by the government — many were national translations of EU regulations or amendments to local laws mandated by EU court rulings. In contrast, the 63 bills approved at the same stage of his first mandate included key policies such as a labor reform that made it cheaper to fire workers.
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