The opposition from Esquerra Republicana, along with the rejection by the PP, Vox, and UPN, has sunk the law promoted by the PSOE in Congress to lower the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers from 0.5 grams per liter to 0.2. This legislation had been stalled for a year. It is the first time this legislative term that the Republicans have rejected a law promoted by the Spanish government – ​​in the previous term they did so with the labor reform, which passed thanks to a mistake by the PP. The decision comes – precisely – on the same day that the PSC and ERC agreed that the Catalan Government withdraw the Generalitat's budgets To prevent Salvador Illa from suffering a parliamentary setback on Friday, MP Inés Granollers argued during the debate in the lower house's Interior Committee that "this law won't prevent accidents; what it will do is cause a lot of frustration." The Republican MP lamented that the Socialists were "cowards" for establishing a rate around 0.0 and argued that the law was "very cynical" and contained a "false promise." However, the PSOE, Sumar, Junts, Bildu, and the PNV supported it, with 18 votes in favor and 19 against. The ERC's position was that the "best" rate would have been to prohibit drivers from drinking a single drop of alcohol, but not only that. The Republicans also advocated for early retirement for professional drivers—they presented an amendment to this effect—and for reducing the number of hours they can spend behind the wheel. Furthermore, they had long been demanding more driving examiners in Catalonia to end the backlog of waiting lists. In fact, there was a call this morning between ERC and Pere Navarro, the Director General of Traffic, but the conversation was unproductive. "The truth is, we haven't received an adequate response," summarized Inés Granollers.

Catalonia is, by far, the autonomous community where convictions for road safety offenses have increased the most in the last year. Furthermore, it remains the region with the highest total number of sentences, something that the deputy prosecutor for road safety in Barcelona, ​​Isabel López, describes as a "consolidated trend." This is confirmed by the annual report of the State Attorney General's Office, which indicates that more than 27,800 convictions for driving offenses were handed down in Catalonia last year, which represents almost a third (29%) of the 95,300 rulings made last year across the country. This also represents another 9,600 of the rulings made in our country in 2023.

Spain is the country with the cheapest alcohol in the eurozone and the fifth with the lowest prices in the entire European Union. Excessive alcohol consumption carries the risk of developing a wide range of diseases, such as cancer of the pharynx, larynx, liver, esophagus, oral cavity, and especially colon and rectal cancer in men, and breast cancer in women, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Therefore, the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) advocates that taxes on alcoholic beverages should be tightened to mitigate their impact on health and also reduce healthcare spending. It estimates that, in Spain, if the price of cheaper beverages, such as wine and beer, increases by between 40% and 130%, there would be "a direct and significant effect" on the reduction of liver disease.