Moncloa vetoes stricter migrant regularization rules: says checking criminal records would cost 16 million euros

MadridThe Spanish government has vetoed the stricter migrant regularization rules that were scheduled to be approved this Thursday in Congress. Given that, as the ARA advancedAlthough Junts supported the amendment introduced by the PP in the Senate to the law on multiple recidivism to control the criminal records of applicants for residence permits and review police reports, Moncloa has decided to use the exceptional powers granted to it by the Constitution to stop it. According to SER And parliamentary sources confirm to this newspaper that the Spanish government, through the Congress's governing board, has vetoed the changes, arguing that they represent an additional cost to public coffers. Specifically, they have argued that reviewing the criminal records or pending cases of residency applicants would entail an expenditure of 16 million euros.

Invoking Article 134.6 of the Constitution, they assert that "manually consulting databases of the justice administration to obtain information on the various criminal cases corresponding to 100% of applicants for residence permits" or processing international applications to "obtain information" from other countries would entail creating 400 civil servant positions in the National Police's General Immigration Commission, at a cost of €41,967 per position. In total, the Moncloa Palace argues that this would represent "an estimated annual increase in the central government's budget of €16 million."

The Spanish government has also vetoed another amendment from the People's Party (PP) that proposed creating more prosecutor positions within two years. According to the Prime Minister's office, this would have cost the state coffers 53 million euros. In doing so, they are blocking the path of the majority in Congress formed by the PP, Junts, and Vox, which sought to limit the regularization of migrants agreed upon between the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Podemos. This is the same thing that happened, for example, exactly one year ago, when the Spanish government vetoed amendments from Junts and the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) to protect Catalan slurry treatment cogeneration plants and a PP amendment to reduce the VAT on basic foodstuffs from 4% to 2%. As retaliation, the Junts members... they derailed creation of the State Public Health Agency.

Junts and the PP criticize the veto

Junts per Catalunya and the PP have launched an attack against the Spanish government's maneuver. The leader of Junts in Madrid, Míriam Nogueras, accused the Spanish government of going "against the grain" of the European Union countries and of wanting to "impose measures that bypass" Congress. "It is anything but democratic that we have to swallow this mass regularization like a toad," she declared in an interview with TV3.

Speaking on behalf of the People's Party (PP), the party's spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, believes the Spanish government has "stripped the lower house of its powers": "We are hamstrung by a government that is a mafia. Political positions that cannot become law hold a majority because a minority government vetoes them," she lamented. Muñoz argued that the Moncloa Palace (the Prime Minister's office) "doesn't care if criminals enter" the country and accused the Socialist Party (PSOE) of wanting to turn Spain into a "sieve for criminals." She questioned the Ministry of Finance's motives for vetoing the amendment: "How will it affect the accounts if we don't have accounts?" she asked.

The "competition" with the Catalan Alliance

At a press conference in Congress, Podemos leader Ione Belarra framed Junts' support for the PP's amendment as part of "the path [Junts] has been following for some time now in its competition with the Catalan far right," alluding to Aliança Catalana, to "see who is more racist." "It's consistent with presenting amendments that hinder and obstruct a regularization process that is essential for the people of our country," she added. She also celebrated the Spanish government's veto of the modifications, stating it was necessary "to prevent" the "association between crime and immigration" from reaching the lower house: "We know they are not correlated, but they insist on it to perpetuate racism."