Congress begins the last year of Pedro Sánchez’s term mired in a monumental deadlock from which there are very few chances of escape. The legislature in Parliament has practically ended. The groups, despite the Government’s insistence that there is still time for much, are radically skeptical. Expectations focus on the president’s promise to finally submit what would be the first and last Budget project of the legislature, even knowing it will not pass. Sending this proposal to the Chamber is a commitment that, if fulfilled, would further bog down the huge pool of initiatives that have been frozen for months because the processing of public accounts would take priority over the rest.
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With this paralysis, EL MUNDO begins a series of reports to take stock of the multiple fronts that mark the Government’s life and Pedro Sánchez’s last year before general elections are called, scheduled for mid-2027.
The lack of a majority, the breakup of Junts with the Government, the cross vetoes among the Frankenstein front partners, and the blockade imposed by the Executive, with the help of the Congress Board, on proposals coming from the Senate, are the accumulated reasons that have paralyzed the work of a Chamber that barely advances by means of royal decree without the possibility of amendments by the groups. Sánchez is the president who has most abused the decree figure, far surpassing his predecessors. Since 2018 he has approved 168, compared to Rajoy’s 107 in eight years, Zapatero’s 108 in another eight, Aznar’s 127 in nine years, or González’s 130 in 14 years.
In this regard, Sánchez not only tops the ranking in approved decrees but also in the number of these that have later not received Congress approval. The legislative figure of the decree, designed to advance regulations more quickly – without ordinary processing – historically used to gather greater consensus. However, now it no longer guarantees the Government to pass its measures. Of the 14 decrees that Congress has repealed in democracy, 11 were signed by Sánchez’s cabinets: two in the previous legislature and the other nine in this one.
In any case, the abundant number of decrees promoted contrasts with the number of laws the Lower House has approved in these years. In 2026, Congress has passed three ordinary laws and three organic laws, six in total. There were already 10 by summer 2025 and five in August 2024. However, that year the legislature had just started – Sánchez was invested president in November 2023 – so most of the regulations were still in the early parliamentary stages. In fact, it is relevant to note that, excluding electoral or post-electoral years, legislative production – excluding decrees – had never been as low as in these first months of 2026.
This reality leads to fewer laws being passed in the three years since the Cortes were constituted than in any other comparable previous period. That is, the 32 highest-ranking norms passed in this triennium are fewer than those approved in the first three years of any legislature – except in mandates that lasted only months because no president was invested. In Rajoy’s second legislature, which Sánchez took over with the motion of no confidence and which at this point had the lowest legislative production, there were already 39 laws by the third year. Another comparison: in Sánchez’s previous term, by this time 84 laws had been approved, more than double. There were already over 60 in Rajoy’s first term, over 80 in Zapatero’s second… and so on with any other.
THE TRICK OF THE DECREE
If what has been approved is less than ever in terms of laws, what remains waiting to see the green light from Congress only grows. And, of the almost 70 stalled bills in Congress, 34 come from royal decrees that the parliamentary majority, after validating them, approved their processing as bills, but they remain in the limbo of endless extensions. Some have reached 50.
This package includes, for example, measures suspending evictions on primary residences to protect vulnerable groups. It is a royal decree validated in May 2024 and, after starting its processing as a bill, has had more than 70 extensions of the amendment deadline. The reality is that it has been paralyzed for 22 months. The same happens with the extension of urgent measures to address the consequences of conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East; those related to the legal regime applicable to the RTVE Corporation, paralyzed for 20 months; those responding to the damage from the dana, also paralyzed for 20 months; the guarantee of the best interests of children and adolescents in extraordinary migration situations, stopped for 14 months; or those strengthening care for dependency for people with ALS and other irreversible diseases, halted for seven months.
GOVERNMENT PROJECTS
However, it is not only about processing decrees as bills, a procedure that is never fulfilled but that the Government uses as a placebo to momentarily silence the groups’ discontent for not having been able to participate in drafting the regulation. The bottleneck is general and also affects the Government’s own legislative initiatives. More than 30 bills sent by the Council of Ministers to the Chamber – about ten with urgent processing – remain in committee or amendment phase. Among them, some already accumulate more than 80 extensions.
These include, among others, the Families bill which had accumulated 84 extensions of the amendment deadline until May; the National Health System Universality bill, stalled since May 2024; the amendment to the Civil Procedure Law to regulate age determination or the one regulating juvenile criminal responsibility, stopped since December 2024; the lobbying bill, halted since February 2025; the Protection of Minors in Digital Environments bill, paralyzed since May 2025; the Expansion and Strengthening of Judicial and Prosecutorial Careers bill, frozen for a year; the Classified Information bill, stranded since September 2025; or the organic bill on Criminal Procedure, halted since December 2025.
THE SENATE VETO
Bills, that is, legislative initiatives from parliamentary groups, fare no better. In the case of those sent by the Senate, the Congress Board, dominated by PSOE and Sumar, has not allowed the processing of any – the exception being the one proposing the recognition of prison officers as authority agents – in the three years of the legislature so far. In this case, the Government’s fear prevails that many will finally be approved because they have the support of groups beyond PP and Vox.
This package includes more than 30 PP bills referring, for example, to VAT reduction; assessment of dependency situations; illegal occupation and neighborhood coexistence; delimitation of the National Court’s powers to try drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking crimes; lowering the retirement age for police, civil guards, and customs surveillance agents; or those related to violence in the healthcare field.
The Executive’s maneuver to block bills coming from the Senate has sometimes consisted of vetoing them, claiming they would negatively impact tax revenue. This happened, for example, with the proposal to exempt from IRPF the aid received by thalidomide victims. Finally, on June 19, the Labor Commission Board rejected that veto with votes from PP and Sumar. Likewise, three Junts bills are paralyzed to apply the 4% VAT to non-exempt dependency care services; to reduce tax pressure on SMEs and self-employed; and to simplify citizen procedures, and one from Vox to restrict immigrant regularization through residency.
GROUP INITIATIVES
Regarding bills originating in Congress, there are more than 10 signed by PP, plus two proposed Regulation reforms still stalled in amendment deadlines, some for over a year: the proposed reform of the National Defense Law for sending military aid abroad; the one related to strengthening CIS independence; the economic compensation for celiacs; or the guarantee of compliance with the General Budget Law.
Added to all these are nearly thirty bills from other groups: about ten from PSOE, 4 from Sumar, 4 from PNV, 1 from Junts, 2 from ERC, 1 from EH Bildu, and 1 from Podemos, plus another 4 joint ones, such as the gag law reform; the guarantee of multilingualism; control of foreign trade in defense material; or regulation of temporary rental contracts.
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