The government will not call Knesset meetings to pass legislation until after
the January 22 election, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin announced on
Tuesday.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu accepted Rivlin’s request
Monday night that the government not work on bills during the election
campaign.
“At this transitional time, the Knesset should not make
long-term decisions,” Rivlin explained. “MKs and parties are busy with the
election and might fall into impropriety in legislating; therefore, it is
preferable to postpone passing bills until the next Knesset.”
Bills that
would have been brought to a vote during the Knesset’s election recess must be
government-proposed.
One of the bills pushed off until February, at the
earliest, would not allow illegal migrants to send money abroad. In addition,
any Israeli found helping migrants send funds out of the country would face a
fine or prison sentence.
Other legislation includes an economic
concentration bill, approved in its first reading in July. Knesset Finance
Committee chairman MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) said the following
month that “real structural change” would be needed for it to pass into
law.
If passed, the law would enforce separation of financial and
non-financial holdings by prohibiting control of financial institutions by large
non-financial corporations. A large financial corporation is defined as one with
at least NIS 40 billion in assets under management and at least NIS 6b. in
Israeli sales.
In addition, new companies would be forced to limit
pyramid structures to a maximum of two public levels, but existing companies
would be permitted to maintain pyramids of up to three public
levels.
Labor slammed the decision to postpone legislation, specifically
because of the economic concentration bill.
“Netanyahu has proven for the
fifth time this week that the upcoming election allows him to make whatever
decisions are comfortable for him,” MK Avishay Braverman (Labor) said. “The
election won’t stop his government from giving tax benefits worth billions,
cancel the increase in dairy prices and declare a fake cancellation of public
transportation fees, but when it comes to an agreement with nurses [on strike]
or significant laws in the area of market concentration, he cannot deal with
them because of the election.”
According to Braverman, Netanyahu is
postponing the bill because he will not be able to “soften and melt”
recommendations made by a government-appointed committee on economic
concentration, since the public’s eyes are on him.
The topics the
committee discussed, like the cost of living, are those that led to the 2011
social protests and will be on citizens’ minds when they vote, the Labor MK
added.