The Senate will again slow down the processing of laws sent to it by Congress.

The People's Party (PP) used its absolute majority in the Senate to definitively approve the reform of the Senate's Rules of Procedure on Wednesday, amending several articles, including Article 133, which until now required the Senate to process legislative initiatives submitted to it by Congress in accordance with the procedure established by the Senate.

Thus, if a law was submitted by Congress for urgent processing, the Senate had to process it in the same way. This is what changed again yesterday thanks to the absolute majority of the Popular Party, which will allow it to take control of the processing time and slow it down as desired. The PP's initiative could be useful, for example, to put the brakes on the package of laws to reform the justice system, which the PP and a large part of the judiciary oppose.

The PSOE believes that one of the objectives of this measure is to delay the debate on the reform of the Justice system.

In reality, this is a new twist on a measure that the Senate tried to impose with an absolute majority of the Popular Party (PP) a year ago during the ongoing debate on the Amnesty Law, and which the Constitutional Court forced it to rectify.

Now, the Senate has changed the formula following the Constitutional Court's decision and is proposing that the Senate's Bureau may request, if appropriate, the necessary background information to determine whether the reasons for applying the urgent procedure exist. In other words, the Senate is once again back on track. The PSOE has already announced that it will file an appeal with the Constitutional Court, which will likely once again overturn the Senate's requests. But in the meantime, several months will have passed, and some laws will surely have been left in limbo for the necessary time.

In yesterday's plenary session, the Senate also approved another amendment to the regulations that will require the President of the Government to attend the Senate's oversight sessions at least once a month. Article 146 is amended to this end.

Sánchez hasn't appeared in these sessions for 15 months. The last time was on March 12, 2024. Since then, more than a year has passed, during which Sánchez has cited scheduling reasons for his absence.

The Senate regulations in force until yesterday did not require the Prime Minister to appear before the Senate. From now on, he must appear once every thirty days, as cabinet ministers are also required to do.

On Tuesday, the Socialists submitted a motion for reconsideration to the Senate Board in an attempt to delay this reform of the Rules of Procedure, although the Senate ultimately decided to move forward with the process.

In fact, many of the groups—PNV, Junts, and Bildu, as well as the PSOE—also protested the way the reform had been debated in the Senate committee.

The clash between the two chambers, Congress and Senate, in this legislative session has few precedents.