Pessimism sets in among those in favor of reforming the gag law.

Critics of the current Citizen Security Law have been hard hit by the attempt to unmuzzle the law passed thanks to the steamroller of the absolute majority the Popular Party enjoyed in 2015.

The gag law, so criticized by the opposition to Mariano Rajoy's government, turned ten this summer: a decade in which it has been in force longer under progressive than conservative governments. Despite attempts at reform—the last one rejected when ERC and EH Bildu considered it in March 2023—it has not achieved significant progress. What's worse, pessimism has taken hold among the parties opposed to the law, which has already collected more than €1 billion in fines, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.

"This fall, things should be clearer, but it's certainly not as simple and easy as it seemed," a member of parliament familiar with the negotiations told La Vanguardia .

This summer, according to the same sources, a meeting was held to assess the position of each party after a few months in which the judicial scandals surrounding the government dominated the agenda. The meeting was attended by the PSOE, Sumar, ERC, Junts, EH Bildu, and PNV. The most solid basis on the table was the preliminary agreement reached, at the beginning of October last year, between the PSOE and EH Bildu to overcome the four obstacles that have held the reform at a standstill for years: the use of rubber bullets as riot control equipment, disrespect for police officers, fines for disobedience, and the forced return of immigrants. However, what seemed to be resolved, today is no longer the case.

Podemos, which is going all or nothing, calling for its repeal, was excluded from the last meeting in Congress.

To these aspects, we must add the amendment of 36 of the 54 articles of the law already agreed upon—but not approved—in the previous legislature. In other words, with what has been achieved so far, the so-called "most damaging aspects" of the law could be reformed, as organizations such as Amnesty International continue to demand, citing a phrase from Pedro Sánchez's speech during the debate on Mariano Rajoy's motion of censure. Congress of Deputies, May 31, 2018: "The government that emerges from this motion of censure will initiate the repeal of the most virulent aspects of the gag law."

At the last meeting, the differences among those present became evident. Not so much regarding what needs to be reformed, but rather how far each side intends to go in modifying the controversial points. For example, the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), with the firm support of Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, favors leaving untouched the forced returns, which were upheld by the Constitutional Court. Others, such as ERC (Republican Left), advocate putting an end to these rejections of immigrants that have been practiced at the border—as long as they are not applicants for international protection or vulnerable individuals, such as minors. Still others, such as EH Bildu (Bildu Nationalist Party), advocate a compromise: addressing this aspect later in a new reform of the Immigration Law, where it should, by nature, be included, with the commitment to include by law the identification of all migrants crossing at border crossings to assess asylum applications.

The same distances can be applied to the controversial use of rubber bullets. Junts (Junts) intends to ban the use of this anti-riot equipment immediately, as is the case in Catalonia. The PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), also with the approval of the Interior Minister, is pushing ahead: it advocates creating protocols for their use, while gradually replacing them with other, supposedly less harmful, equipment. In the middle, in this case, are ERC (Republican Revolutionary Army) and EH (Bildu), who want to eliminate them, but give a one-year deadline from when the law, if necessary, comes into force.

But who's missing from the equation of the parliamentary majority with which to push through a reform of this magnitude? Podemos, which wasn't even invited to the June meeting, according to sources within the party. Podemos is stuck in a do-or-die situation. It's hard to swallow that the party that was born in the heat of the 15-M, the marches for dignity, and the citizen uprisings—which championed its repeal—hasn't been able to claim the political point of its repeal. Because Ione Belarra's party, and this is where the distance between partners becomes abysmal, doesn't even talk about reform, but rather about repeal. Since this is an organic law, repeal would mean submitting a whole new text to the Congress of Deputies.

A meeting was held this summer to address the reform: there is still no agreement.

What all parties seem to agree on is that the new session presents an opportunity, although no one dares to ring the bells, as was done just a year ago. Some acknowledge the "pessimism"; others call it "discretion in negotiations to facilitate progress." But the truth is that another two months have passed, albeit a summer one, in which no one has lifted a finger.