This Wednesday the PP has slipped the threat of breaking off the negotiation with the PSOE on the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) if the socialists approve with Junts the proposed amnesty law for those accused of the process Catalan independence movement. The deputy secretary of institutional action of the popular party, Esteban González Pons, has accused Sánchez of “surrendering” to the party of Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan president and leader of Junts, who has remained on the run from justice since 2017 and who is one of the potential beneficiaries of the amnesty. González Pons, the Government’s interlocutor for the renewal of the CGPJ – with the mediation of the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders – has cooled the possibility of an agreement at this time: “It is very difficult to reach an agreement for the CGPJ with someone who At the same time, it is humiliating, disavowing and forcing the Supreme Court to correct itself, breaking the separation of powers,” said Pons in Bucharest, where he is participating in the congress of the European People’s Party (EPP).
The popular parties thus cast more uncertainty on next week’s meeting between González Pons and the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, with Commissioner Reynders. The PP has already broken off the negotiation on the CGPJ on previous occasions, alleging other reasons: the last time occurred in October 2022, when the pact was about to be announced and the popular leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, refused to sign it when he realized that the Government was going to eliminate the crime of sedition from the Penal Code to reduce the sentence for those convicted of the process, as the independence parties demanded. The CGPJ, which is not a court, but the governing body of all judges in Spain, has had its mandate expired for five years, pending the PSOE and the PP reaching an agreement on the names of the new members. This blockade prevents the Council from appointing judges in hearings, higher courts and especially in the Supreme Court, which is aggravating the judicial collapse.
In a very harsh tone, the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, also cried out this Wednesday in Bucharest against the amnesty law, a law that was a condition of Junts and ERC to support the investiture of Pedro Sánchez last November and which is about to be approved by the Congressional Justice Commission. Ayuso has called on the conservative family to toughen relations with Pedro Sánchez, in a message clearly addressed to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who has a very good relationship with the president of the Government and who is campaigning to be re-elected in office. “I ask the European Popular Group not to have collusion with Pedro Sánchez, who has linked the president of the group [popular] with the Nazis,” the Madrid president launched before hundreds of delegates. “She can’t be whitened anymore,” she added. Díaz Ayuso was alluding to Sánchez’s words in the European Parliament last December, when he accused the leader of the EPP, the German Manfred Weber, of protecting the PP’s pacts with Vox and asked him if he would agree that they would agree again in Berlin. the names of leaders of the Third Reich on streets and squares, as the president said Vox wants to do in Spain.
Ayuso’s words and Pons’ comments – who has assured that the PP will give its support to Von der Leyen on the “condition” that she “continues with the defense of the Spanish rule of law” – increase the pressure on the head of the Community Executive. . In practice, however, they do not have much distance, since Von der Leyen is the only EPP candidate, who will proclaim her tomorrow, and, furthermore, she is the favorite of all the parties to preside (in her case for a second term ) the European Commission. The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, met with her this Wednesday, before the congress.
The PP has taken its fight against the amnesty law to the Bucharest congress, which it has been trying to Europeanize for months. The popular Europeans have approved a resolution on the defense of the rule of law that cries out against the measure of grace. “We deplore the proposed amnesty law in Spain, the political actions that led to its adoption and its possible consequences for Europe. “It offers impunity for crimes related to the pro-secessionist movement, which has been considered contrary to the rule of law and rejected by the EU institutions,” says the text proposed by González Pons, one of the several vice-presidents of the EPP, who, like Ayuso has also demanded help to stop the measure and, in his speech in plenary, he has cried out against the Executive for the Koldo case.
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Maintain a red line
“What has been demonstrated today is that all Spaniards are going to pay for the Government’s weakness again,” said González Pons. “This very weak Government no longer has the strength to maintain a red line in front of them [Junts] nor in front of anyone. I get the feeling that what we are going to witness tomorrow [en la comisión del Congreso en la que se va a votar la ley de amnistía] It is going to be a new surrender for Pedro Sánchez to continue one more day in La Moncloa. A Government that at this moment is abusing and that cannot maintain its red lines,” added the deputy secretary of the PP, who has trusted that the European Court of Justice will subsequently paralyze this amnesty law. The European Commission will also analyze whether the measure complies with the European treaties, but only when the text is final, as reported by Commissioner Reynders. “We feel the support of all the popular parties in Europe,” said Pons.
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