The rise of the extreme right in Spain that predict all surveys has managed to place in public opinion the issue of immigration as a problem and has dragged traditionally conservative formations at increasingly scaled speeches. Congress is a direct thermometer of that change: in recent weeks the deputies have voted several proposals related to migrants while the popular legislative initiative for extraordinary regularization of more than half a million people remains stagnant in the parliamentary process.
This week the lower house discussed the taking into consideration of a law agreed between Junts and the PSOE to transfer immigration powers to Catalonia. The text did not go ahead with the rejection of PP, Vox and Podemos, who believes that behind the initiative a fight of the independentists with the Xenophobic Party of Aliança Catalan is hidden. That struggle around immigration between the two parties slows the few hopes of the groups to boost the ILP negotiations, in fallow before the summer.
All sources involved in the negotiation of that initiative recognize that the dialogue is fully stopped since the summer. In May, the Government accelerated contacts with the groups and came to raise a draft with the idea of reaching an agreement before the August stop. The trigger for that awakening by the government were the criticisms received by the new Foreigner Regulation, which will push thousands of asylum applicants to irregularity.
The Executive presented to the groups a draft that proposed to grant the papers to migrants arriving in Spain before the year 2025, provided that they meet a series of requirements to be completed. The original ILP text that took Congress into consideration, after gathering more than 800,000 signatures, bet on extraordinary regularization without conditions, which allowed the papers to be achieved to those people who failed to obtain the residence due to the difficulty of meeting the different requirements included in the ordinary route.
But the amendments of the groups showed the problems to agree with the heterogeneous majority with which the government has to take out the laws in this legislature. In summary, three blocks of amendments were raised. Those of the PP and the PNV, which seek to associate residence authorization with a employment contract or some type of economic activity. Those of Junts, which conditions any negotiation to the transfer of competencies to Catalonia. And those of the leftist forces, agreed with the regularization movement already, with the idea that the law encompasses as much time as possible, tied to the future date of entry into force of the text.
The PNV, however, was shown before the receptive summer to negotiate with the government. In their amendment, they linked the residence authorization with the existence of a employment contract or some type of economic activity, without exceptions. They presented a very detailed proposal, with a large number of casuistry, but all with the focus placed on the labor incorporation of the beneficiaries, which in the opinion of the main drivers of the initiative moves away from the humanitarian objective of the same and could leave “many people behind”.
Basque group sources clarify, however, beyond asking for this link with a employment contract, they are “fully aware” that many people “may be in a situation of special vulnerability.” “We do not close to analyze whether there are other causes that can be enough for regularization, such as vulnerable people due to illness or age, asylum or others, but we understand that causality must be well defined, as well as the procedure,” they argue.
The problem is that the rush of the government stopped dry after the outbreak of the Santos Cerdán case and the conversations never resumed again. “Before summer the government was very involved, it had many hurries, we were pressing the groups, but the Cerdán case exploded and the ILP exploded,” says a commission deputy who addresses regularization.
This Wednesday, the Minister of Social Security, Inclusion and Migrations, Elma Saiz, asked the groups to reach a “meeting point”, to a “common land” from which to advance in the agreement. “It's the time,” he said. “The groups have presented their amendments, lordships, but the success for citizens would be to reach a meeting point, to a common land. I think there is space to advance,” he said in an appearance in Congress at his own request.
The struggle between Junts and Podemos
One of the keys to the negotiation was precisely to reconcile the most conservative interests of the PNV and those of parties such as Podemos, which remain firm in which the initiative is the one presented by social organizations. In adding they have tried to bring positions with the defense of an intermediate position, aware that in this legislature a maximum initiative is practically impossible. A route that was raised during the negotiations is that there were several criteria with the possibility of fulfilling some of them to access regularization.
But the voices consulted agree that the events of the last week further bury the possibilities of achieving a successful negotiation, with Junts fogged after the defeat of their proposal of law to delegate immigration powers to Catalonia for the rejection of Podemos. Both parties have engaged in harsh criticism in recent days.
After Tuesday's vote, in which those of Ione Belarra knocked down the Junts law, the spokeswoman for the independentists, Míriam Nogueras, complained precisely about the lack of reciprocity of Podemos and recalled that they voted in favor of the regularization initiative could be processed. Some deputies, in fact, believe that the movement of the four deputies was a mistake because it exhausts the possibilities of negotiation with Junts in the ILP.
“Now I see it difficult if Junts responds with the same destructive logic as we can,” says a deputy about the future of ILP negotiations.
Podemos has requested as a condition to support the delegation of competencies that Juns eliminates the “racist” contents of its law but also support the popular initiative in the terms in which it came to Congress. In fact, the party has long asks the government to approve it through a royal decree to avoid the delays of parliamentary processing. The problem is that this route also needs the contest of the majority of the investiture, in which the PNV and the Catalan independents are.
The left groups regret that the negotiation has been stagnant precisely at a time when the right, considers, is managing to install the frames of the conversation about immigration.
Just a week ago, the PP votes in favor of a VOX proposal to end roots regularization, the only way for migrants who have been in Spain for years, as well as to expand migrants expulsions. In July, the extreme right raised a massive expulsion of immigrants, in line with the postulates of US President Donald Trump.
“Right now Congress is being speaker of Xenophobic speeches, which they have presented between Vox, PP and Junts in recent weeks is a barbarity and we have not been able to counteract with the approval of this ILP,” regrets the deputy of adding Vicenç Vidal.