The approach is simple. Four years ago, Parliament approved what is known as the Digital Services Act (known as DSA by its acronym in English) to protect fundamental rights in the digital environment and for operators to be accountable for the content published on their platforms.
Being a regulation, its entry into force is automatic. It does not require transposition. Its obligations apply fully since February 2024. The problem? That Spain has not yet granted the necessary powers for the supervisor to act as such.
That supervisor, or coordinator of digital markets, is the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC), which was designated as such by the Government. But it needs a legal authorization that authorizes it, for example, to request information from operators, initiate investigations, conduct searches or initiate sanctioning proceedings.
She had already been rejected
The enablement is a usual demand in the supervisor in any of its communications. And despite not having political implications, the measure has already crashed three times in Congress.
The latest, this Tuesday, when the Lower House rejected the admission for processing of a bill that the PSOE had registered in March, just a few weeks ago, to try to process the reform as soon as possible.
And it is that the necessary reforms –are modifications to the Law 34/2002 on information society services and the Law 3/2013 on the creation of the CNMC—are already being processed in another bill, which also develops the application of the European Media Regulation.
The initiative is subject to discussion in the Economy Committee, which has held several hearing sessions before closing its amendment deadlines. However, both in PSOE and in Sumar understand that, if it manages to be approved, it will not be in the short term.
The PSOE sought express reform…
It is precisely in these appearances where the opposition, fundamentally the PP, reproached the Government for the delay in empowering the CNMC. And it is the reason that led the PSOE to promote a bill, detached from any other consideration, to facilitate its express approval.
The result is already known. The PSOE found itself in the debate that neither ERC nor Junts would support the initiative, which was left in the hands of the PP. The 'populars' denounced the possible political censorship if the CNMC had these powers and conditioned their final support on agreeing on the new presidency in this body.
… But Congress knocked it down for the second time
The current president, Cani Fernández, concludes her term next June. In the previous renewal of board members the PP declined to participate, as the Government wanted an agreement that also encompassed the CNMV and the Bank of Spain, proposing José Luis Escrivá as governor for the latter body. A candidate to whom the ‘populars’ were frontally opposed.
Despite the criticism, deputy Mario Cortés went so far as to state that his group would not oppose processing the initiative, since it was a measure they had already defended. Hours later they rejected it along with Vox and Junts. ERC abstained.
He got lost on a bus
But it's not the first time that Congress rejects the measure. These legal changes came into force for a few weeks, after being approved within the omnibus decree-law with the pension increase and the extension of the 'social shield' at the end of 2024.
When the Government recovered part of the repealed decree-law, it did not include the authorization to the CNMC, which it decided to process in the aforementioned bill, now stalled awaiting its amendments.
El PSOE assures that el PP asked for it
In the PSOE, the PP's turn in the vote surprised. Especially when, they assure Demócrata, it was the Popular Group itself that came to demand a specific decree-law with this reform to have it approved as soon as possible.
The criticism doesn't stop there either, since they understand that the reluctance of Junts and ERC is not justified either, since from the Socialist Group they understand that they were referring to the Media Regulation, whose regulation was not incorporated into their bill. “No one had read the initiative,” they snap.
These sources attribute the rejection to strategic decisions that do not address a shared need even publicly by the vast majority of the Chamber. And that ignore a repeated request from the CNMC itself.
The PP did not want to save the Government
Sources from the Popular Group assure Demócrata that there was no change of plans and justify their position in that the Government did not seek their votes. “Let them not expect us to save the day for them if they don't have their partners,” these sources excuse themselves, who recognize the discomfort that saving an initiative of the Executive would have caused and the possible punishment that could have come from Vox.
The conclusion is the same that they make in the Government for months. Any vote that depends on the PP, even when they may coincide on the substance of the proposal, runs the risk of entailing a new failure for the Executive.
And the CNMC and its competencies have been the latest example of a dynamic that maintains the legislative activity in dribs and drabs, and that the times it drips.