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The Government finally has a certainty to cling to in an uncertain legislature full of twists and turns, where the outbreak and severity of the Koldo case They have turned the failure of the PSOE and Sumar in the Galician elections into a secondary setback. The amnesty, the key on which the longevity of the Executive depends, enters the decisive week. The deadline for the Congressional Justice Commission to meet and approve the proposed amnesty law expires on Thursday, which would be debated a week later in the chamber. And, although it may seem paradoxical and they have a 72-hour deadline, for the first time since Pedro Sánchez was sworn in as president on November 16, the feeling among the ministers and senior officials of the Government and the PSOE is as if several years had passed in instead of 12 weeks―, in La Moncloa and in Ferraz they hope to successfully overcome the negotiations with Junts and without last-minute setbacks and continue with the processing of the grace measure. And not only that: the last few weeks have served to advance the multi-party talks to guarantee support for the General Budgets, whose approval requires the support of the Government’s nationalist and pro-independence partners. Without exception. The sources consulted are clear: the Budgets will not be presented “until they are tied” and “they depend on the approval of the amnesty.”
The socialists want to try to get out of the tremendous crisis that the corruption scandal has caused them as soon as possible, taking advantage of the relaxation of controls on public contracts during the pandemic, which would have nestled in the heart of the Government during the years in which Koldo García He was José Luis Ábalos’s trusted man in the Ministry of Transportation. The amnesty, which for months has been the PSOE’s main headache, has become the Executive’s hold in the middle of a perfect storm. Closing the amnesty is the only way to shore up the legislature. The feeling that has been transmitted during the last hours from the engine room of the Government and its main party is one of optimism, as corroborated by different sources, who point out that the agreement is imminent and the amnesty will come out without the slightest doubt. “The pressure from the judges is having the opposite effect. There is no other alternative. Nobody would win. “We would all lose,” summarizes a socialist leader about the criminal case that the Supreme Court opened on Thursday against Carles Puigdemont and Rubén Wagensberg for the crime of terrorism in the caso Tsunami.
The PSOE is, however, cautious after its previous experiences with Junts and due to the effects of the decisions of the judicial sphere. The accusation of terrorism against Puigdemont, who has fled from Spanish justice since 2017, opens a long road full of unknowns at the expense of the European Parliament, Belgian justice and the scope of the amnesty. Nobody was counting on the Supreme Court’s new case when the pardon began to be negotiated. For this reason, Sánchez, who knows that this week the next four years of Government are at stake, has given the order to remain silent. Nobody issues the details of the fringes of the agreement, neither from the socialist nor from the neo-convergent side.
The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and Santos Cerdán, the organization secretary of the PSOE, finalize the pact with Junts in the midst of absolute discretion. The same happens with Puigdemont’s party, where Jordi Turull plays a crucial role. That is why panic spread among socialists when the general secretary of Junts suffered a heart attack a week ago. His reintegration into the negotiations, which have intensified as the deadline of March 7 approaches, the last day that the Justice Commission could be held – the forecast is that it will be convened for Wednesday or Thursday -, was received with relief. An indication of how far the talks are going is that the PSOE has not asked for a new extension to negotiate with Junts a new opinion on the amnesty.
In the PSOE they are sure that they will not revive the already seen on January 30, when Junts caused Sánchez’s first major parliamentary defeat with an unprecedented decision: it voted against the same text that it had supported in the Justice Commission, after the Government refused to include new amendments that would provide coverage within of the grace measure for all terrorist crimes. That is, a shield designed for Puigdemont. The sources consulted emphasize that the PSOE seems to have accepted changes in the law, but in no way will it include all terrorist crimes under the coverage of the amnesty law. The socialists have made it very clear, publicly and privately, that it is not an option. The Constitutional Court and European justice could overthrow the rule, they allege. And they cannot back down again after the resistance they showed at the end of January to accepting Junts’ latest conditions. “We stood down,” they settled then.
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The context, furthermore, is not the same. The last movement of the Supreme Court was followed by the draft opinion of the Venice Commission on the amnesty law. Prepared at the request of the Senate, where the PP has an absolute majority, on the initial version of the bill, the draft endorses “political reconciliation” as a driver of the regulations, but is critical of the urgent processing. In this scenario, Puigdemont’s last words have been interpreted as the prelude to a pact that the PSOE has been resisting since autumn. He former president On Saturday, he predicted a “new stage” that would leave behind “the slab of repression.” It was the culmination of a week of exchanges of gestures about getting the amnesty negotiations back on track. However, at the same time he warned that repression remains “more alive than ever,” in an indirect reference to the Supreme Court’s decision to open a case against him for an alleged crime of terrorism. And another detail: Junts points to the judiciary and exempts the Government from the latest accusation against its leader.
The news from the justice system has almost served as a catalyst for the agreement pending closure. They have even caused ERC to reduce its reproaches to Junts in its perpetual fight for hegemony in the independence movement. Both formations share that the Supreme Court has descended into the political arena and has sought to interfere in the work of the legislature.
The Venice Commission draft has been received with joy not only by the Government. Also by the independentists. The president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, called for responsibility during the national council of the republicans. “We feel the duty to remind everyone that, beyond the tactics of short-termism, there are great objectives and noble aspirations that this country deserves to come true,” he said in a remote message to Junts.
But where the greatest friction has occurred has been between Junts and the commons. Some statements by Jaume Asens predicting an immediate agreement on amnesty stirred up the independence supporters. “The PSOE will not vote against the Junts amendments and Junts will not vote against the law. “Everyone has made their starting positions more flexible and an intermediate point has been found,” said whoever was in charge of Yolanda Díaz to negotiate with Puigdemont. Turull came out to correct him more in form than in substance: “If there is any news it will be reported from Junts,” he wrote in X.
Asens once again took the pact for granted this Sunday, confident that “Russian roulette” of the failed vote on the amnesty law in Congress will not be repeated. “I believe that the amnesty law will shield their cases; In fact, I think it already shielded them at the time, but now I think they will be even more shielded,” Asens added at an event to present his endorsement to run for the European elections. The meeting on June 9 will examine the state of form of the PSOE after the latest series of misfortunes. The irony is that, if the amnesty continues its course in Congress, the PP will delay its processing in the Senate for two months, before it returns to Parliament for final approval at the end of May or beginning of June. That is, it would coincide with the European election campaign. And that, on paper, will not contribute to the mobilization of the progressive electorate opposed to the grace measure.
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