The Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, is practically banned from entering the press conference after the Council of Ministers. Moncloa, who is the one who decides which member of the Government appears before the media every Tuesday, has set aside again to number 2 of Podemos for the presentation of the Parity Law (officially, the Parity Representation Law), of which he is a co-proponent.
Two months ago, when the law reached the Council of Ministers for the first time, Pedro Sánchez thought it convenient to remove Montero from the presentation and delegate to the vice president Nadia Calvino to present the norm. That press conference, held one day before 8-M, was marked by the controversial vote of the only yes is yes who faced PSOE and Unidas Podemos in Congress; This time exactly the same thing has happened, but in the context of an electoral campaign.
The Ministry of Equality, which did not appear in the first draft of the regulation, does appear in the latter, which includes the majority of demands of United We Can. The difference between the two texts lies precisely in what Irene Montero claimed after her March veto: the 40% of each gender in bodies such as the Constitutional Court, the Council of State, the Court of Accounts, the Fiscal Council and the General Council of the Judiciary.
[Sánchez hace suyas las medidas de paridad de Podemos y habrá cuotas de género en el TC y el CGPJ]
That the Minister of Equality it is not this one in the press conference after the Council of Ministers, despite dealing with a law of his negotiation, it means a complete disavowal for the minority partner of the Government, who has not appeared in Moncloa since before the electoral campaign. The only concession that the PSOE has granted, in this case, is to include Montero’s team among those responsible for the rule, contrary to what happened in its first version.
The Fixed Equal Representation Law equal shares (minimum 40% by gender) for electoral lists, companies, government, town halls and constitutional bodies. The justification for Calviño presenting it and not Montero, assures Moncloa, is that everything that affects companies is also within its competence.
In fact, the rule is not drawn up by the Ministry of Equality either, but by the Ministry of the Presidency, that is, by Felix Bolanos, with contributions from other departments. The first version of the text only included proposals for Treasury, Interior, Justice and Economic Affairs, but not of Equality. Including the constitutional bodies in the text, Moncloa has had no choice but to accept the concession.
Despite the update, and as published by EL ESPAÑOL, four of the five constitutional bodies or of institutional relevance in which the Government wants to impose parity by law they already fit currently, without the need for legal prescription, to that situation. Two of them, moreover, are chaired by women (the Court of Accounts and the Council of State) and in a third (the Constitutional Court) the vice president is a woman.
[Todas las instituciones en las que el Gobierno quiere imponer cuotas de género ya son paritarias]
The draft contemplates a rule of parity of 60-40% between genders, not 50-50. Neither the Supreme Court nor the presidencies of the jurisdictional bodies, which are the responsibility of the General Council of the Judiciary, have been included.
Government sources confirm that the bill did not go through the General Commission of Secretaries of State and Undersecretaries of State -the call counselor— Last Thursday it was not even included in the virtual commission until the last minute, as the usual course dictates. During the first round of the law, in March, Montero also had no news of the text until hours before its presentation in the Council.
The Government is not even clear that the Parity Law can be approved in this legislature. Starting this Tuesday, it will begin its process in Congress and the Senate, probably already in the summer. Times are tight, since the Chambers will close at the beginning of October so that general elections can be held in December.
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