Congress is preparing to approve on Thursday, with a fairly loose and symbolic ratification, the opinion of the first legal project of this period of sessions in 2026 with the support of minor thefts and accelerate the processes against repeat offenders who commit crimes on a continuous basis. It has been an instrument of the Government to mend the broken relations with Junts, but now it will reflect the differences in this matter with the progressive partners, who reject it. The project will thus go to the Senate and if the amendments announced there by Vox are not accepted, it will then come into force. The Lower House, on the other hand, was the only island that did not have that representation.
The law on multiple recidivism, which will be debated and approved in Congress in principle in its final step this Thursday, was admitted for processing in September of that year and validated in the Justice commission with the approval of the PP, PSOE, Vox, Junts and PNV at the end of December. Sumar, EH Bildu, Podemos and BNG already opposed it then and continue in that position. Vox confirmed this Tuesday that it will present, when it is sent to the Senate starting this week, some amendments to toughen “the possibility of multi-recidivist foreigners being repatriated and serving their sentences in their countries of origin,” as announced by its spokesperson in the lower house, Pepa Millán.
This step will not change anything in the Senate and the law will prosper as agreed, despite the problems that Executive partners such as Sumar or Podemos have increased, who consider that the PSOE has given in in this case to the most right-wing positions of Junts, something that has led ERC to position itself close to abstention due to the political and electoral use that has been made of the problem of recidivism of crimes, particularly in Catalonia. The Government expects that this vote will succeed without excessive problems and the PP in this case will support it because it understands that it accepts a large part of its positions.
The law seeks to toughen penalties for theft when it is repetitive and when the stolen object is a mobile phone or other electronic device. Junts has even opted to modify the Penal Code so that a sentence of up to three years in prison is applied to those who commit these repeated crimes, even if the total amount of what was stolen does not add up to 400 euros. The socialist spokesperson, Patxi López, anticipated this Tuesday that the law will gather a “broad consensus” because its wording “has better circumscribed” the needs, measures and crimes contemplated and also that a sentence of one to five years for the so-called crime has been agreed with the parliamentary right. petaqueowhich is the logistical support provided in certain areas of Spain to drug boats through the transportation or supply of fuel.
Congress also almost unanimously supported this Tuesday the taking into consideration to bring to a next plenary session in a rather urgent manner the reform of article 63.9 of the Constitution to make it easier for the island of Formentera to elect its own senator, independently of the one already elected by the island of Ibiza. There wasn’t much of a debate about it. Almost all the spokespersons stressed that this historic demand, which already garnered great consensus in 2004 and then in 2007, will allow individual, direct and democratic representation for Formentera and its citizens, as the majority of the islands of Spain already have.
Constitutional reforms are not common and require almost general support to prosper, which shows the slowdown that another slope is suffering, which aims to recover in the Valencian Community the historical, a regional right that appears in the statute of that autonomy and that has been supported by 539 of the 542 Valencian municipalities, a large majority of civil society, universities, unions, businessmen, professional associations or cultural associations. The Valencian Cortes addressed this proposal in 2020, the Botànic government refreshed it in 2022 with the support of the PP and the rejection of Vox and Ciudadanos, but since then hardly any progress has been made, without them pressing this demand either from the current autonomous government, nor from its Cortes or the big parties, PP and PSOE.
He confirms that neither PP, nor PSOE nor Vox want to move this demand as has been proven in recent years, and places duties on the new president, the popular Juan Francisco Pérez Lorca, chosen to replace the questioned Carlos Mazón: “His first action should have been to reiterate what he promoted as mayor of Finestrat: denounce the blockade that we Valencians have suffered for almost six years and recover our self-government in matters such as family law, succession, application for survival of family businesses or agricultural farms.”
