If the department of Mónica García, who is celebrating two years as minister these days, has been characterized by something, it has been by her “voracious” legislative. Both she and her lieutenant, Javier Padilla, have announced a dozen projects, including laws and decrees, which the break between Junts and Pedro Sánchez has turned into a dead letter.
Puigdemont’s party announced last Thursday that it will present “amendments to all” 100% of the Government’s legal projects in the Congress of Deputies. These are 20 laws that he wants to overturn as soon as possible.
Among the most affected regulations in the health field are three of the most advanced in processing: the Law on Universality of the National Health System (SNS), which guarantees health care to immigrants without restrictions; the Equity and Cohesion Law, an update of the 2002 law that Sumar had split in two – on the one hand equity and, on the other, cohesion – to see if they could process it sooner; and the Alcohol and Minors Law, which sought to tighten adolescents’ access to these drinks. All of them will now face a devolution amendment, which could have the support of PP and Vox, and overthrow their parliamentary debate.
The blockade also affects the initiatives that Mónica García planned to take to the Council of Ministers before the end of the year. Three central texts stand out: the new Medicines Law, the decree on New Health Technologies and the Framework Statute of SNS health personnel.
The Strategic Plan for the Pharmaceutical Industry is also on hold, on which the sector and the autonomies had been working for about a year.
The impact extends to other laws that the department hoped to approve in the coming months, such as the anti-smoking law, the digital health law or the patient rights law. None of them will continue their course as long as Junts maintains its position of generalized blocking of the Executive’s proposals.
The minister’s latest outbursts, such as the threats to the PP’s Health Ministers (and especially to Madrid, her obsession) over the screening crisis, are better understood in this context.