The deal ending a long freeze

Spain’s governing coalition, the Socialist Party (PSOE) and left-wing Sumar, announced on Monday that they will immediately reactivate a legislative proposal to amend the Criminal Code. The bill was first admitted for debate by the Congress of Deputies in December 2023 but has been frozen in the Justice Committee ever since, with repeated extensions of the deadline for amendments requested or tolerated by the government parties themselves.

In a joint press conference at the Congress, the deputy spokesman for Sumar, Enrique Santiago, the PSOE’s delegate on the Constitutional Commission, Artemi Rallo, and the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, confirmed that the coalition will use its majority in the Congress Bureau to close the amendment period on Tuesday. The move aims to relaunch a reform that the left has pursued since the previous parliamentary term.

“Se trata de un paso esencial en las derogaciones de las leyes mordazas.”

What the reform would scrap

The agreed text removes several penal provisions that critics call ‘muzzle laws’. Specifically, it would delete the crimes of insults and slanders against the Crown (articles 490.3 and 491), against high state institutions such as the Government, the General Council of the Judiciary, the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court (article 504), and against the Cortes Generales and regional legislative assemblies. It would also abolish the offence of offending religious sentiments (article 525) and the crime of outrages against Spain and its national symbols (article 543).

Rallo framed the changes as a move to strengthen freedom of expression and to bring Spain into line with international standards set by the United Nations and the Council of Europe.

“Con esta supresión, el Grupo Socialista pretende fortalecer el derecho a la libertad de expresión como se corresponde con una democracia de calidad y plena.”

The concession on terrorism glorification

To secure broader support within the investiture bloc, the two parties agreed to keep the current offence of glorifying terrorism (article 578) untouched. Sumar had initially called for its repeal, but PSOE resisted and the final pact drops that demand. The compromise avoids friction with other parliamentary allies.

Political timing

Monday’s announcement comes during a week when the government faces intense judicial pressure, especially on the Socialist side. The former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has been summoned as a suspect in a money-laundering investigation, and the coalition has struggled to advance its legislative agenda. The revival of the Criminal Code reform is widely interpreted as an attempt to regain political initiative and to reassemble the majority that backed Pedro Sánchez’s investiture in 2023 — a majority that includes Junts, whose votes are expected for final approval before the summer recess.

“Estamos convencidos de que vamos a contar con el apoyo de estas mayorías, igual que en diciembre de 2023 se aprobó su toma en consideración.”

Next steps

If any parliamentary group tables an overall amendment, the bill will return to the floor for a fresh debate and vote. Once that hurdle is cleared, the committee will designate a drafting panel and process partial amendments. The coalition aims to have the law on the statute book before the August break.