Together, they are putting the law against multiple recidivism on track in Congress with the support of the PSOE and PP.

MadridTwo days after Pedro Sánchez acknowledge the "breaches" with Junts and publicly express a willingness to "restart" the relationship With the support of Carles Puigdemont's party, the Junts party has secured one of its parliamentary demands. The Socialists have now agreed to unblock Junts's law on multiple recidivism in Congress after it had been stalled for over a year. This is one of the outstanding commitments that the Spanish Prime Minister had made. He already said he would take it out of the freezer.Although Junts initially greeted Sánchez's words with distrust at the end of October, the Socialists have finally made some concessions. However, the list of issues still pending before Puigdemont's party reverses its decision to secede is long and includes matters more complex to implement than simply increasing penalties for theft.

In the case of the law on multiple recidivism, the PSOE distanced itself from the left-wing parties of the plurinational majority and sided not only with Junts but also with the PP. In the vote to consider the legislation in September 2024, the initiative already had the support of both the PSOE and the PP, which has its own law against multiple recidivism currently being processed and justifies its support for Junts' proposal by claiming it incorporated part of their own. The Junts members have agreed to modifications to the law with both the Socialists and the People's Party, and neither of the two national parties has backed down due to the other's presence. However, amidst the offensive against Sánchez regarding the legal cases that are now dogged by him as the election campaign in Extremadura approaches, PP sources emphasized that this was in no way a "three-way agreement" with the Socialists.

In any case, the changes introduced have received the support of the three parties, as well as Vox and the PNV. In a meeting this Thursday, they all approved the report of the drafting committee for the legislation, which is a first step while awaiting the final details to be ironed out in the Justice Committee, scheduled for next week. Junts celebrates that the main body of the text and the philosophy of its proposed law have been preserved and already have the necessary majority. The commitment is that it will be voted on in the first plenary session of next year, expected to be the first week of February. The PSOE is thus accelerating the process to ensure the passage of one of Junts' demands despite the reservations it generates within the rest of the bloc that supports it. EH Bildu and Podemos have already positioned themselves firmly against it, while ERC, for the moment, is reserving its vote and asking for time to thoroughly study the proposal. Sumar has also not clarified its position.

The toughening of penalties

The Junts text proposes punishing the theft of "mobile, computer, or communication devices, or electronic or technological devices" with between one and three years in prison. This adds this type of theft to the aggravated form of theft, which is not currently included in the Penal Code. Furthermore, in the case of petty thefts—amounts less than 400 euros—and currently punished only with a fine, more than three offenses would also be punishable by imprisonment. Junts thus proposes eliminating the current requirement that the accumulated value of the offenses must exceed 400 euros. The modifications introduced in six compromise amendments—four agreed upon between Junts and the PP and two between Junts and the PSOE—are mainly nuances and some new elements. The PP has added, for example, that the theft of mobile phones will be punishable by imprisonment as long as they are "likely to contain personal data or information." Those found for sale in commercial establishments are excluded. At the initiative of the Popular Party, penalties for fraud are also being toughened. While the Penal Code currently only stipulates fines when the amount defrauded does not exceed 400 euros, the new wording follows the same steps as with theft. When the perpetrator has already been convicted "for at least three offenses of the same nature," they may be sentenced to between six months and three years in prison. The agreement between Juntos por el Cambio and the PSOE, for its part, introduces the possibility of applying a precautionary ban on residing in or visiting a specific place, neighborhood, municipality, province, or autonomous community while a crime is being investigated, in order to protect the victim or prevent repeat offenses.