The PP asks the European Commissioner for Justice to rule on the criminal case for terrorism against Puigdemont | Spain

The European Parliament is going to request, at the request of the European People’s Party, the appearance of the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, before the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (Libe) of the European Parliament to debate the case opened by terrorism in the Spanish Supreme Court against former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont.

The request does not yet have a date – it will depend on Libe’s agenda – nor is it known if Reynders will attend, as he is not obliged to do so, although the commissioners usually accept this type of invitations. Community Executive sources indicate that Reynders’ decision whether to appear or not will wait until a date has been set for the parliamentary commission, probably at the beginning of next week.

The Belgian commissioner has only a few days left in office, only until the end of the month, when he will leave to focus on his campaign to become the next secretary general of the Council of Europe, according to community sources. Before, next week, he will meet for the third time with the socialist Félix Bolaños, Minister of Justice, and with the deputy secretary of Institutional Action of the PP, Esteban González Pons, within the series of meetings supervised by Reynders to reach an agreement between the two main political forces that allow the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), negotiations that are moving very slowly.

The PP’s strategy against the Executive of Pedro Sánchez and, above all, against the amnesty law that paved the way for his inauguration, focuses largely on Brussels. During the congress of the European People’s Party (EPP) held this week in Bucharest to enthrone its candidate to preside over the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the popular president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, once again asked Europe and his political family for help to fight against the legislative initiative. “A growing majority of Spaniards see in the PP and the European institutions the guarantee to stop these absurdities, today we cannot disappoint them,” said Feijóo.

From Brussels, the popular MEPs are now redoubling that bet. “The PP will go to the end alerting the European Commission of the steps taken by Sánchez and the danger of approving an amnesty that unprotects democracy in the face of a future coup and the rule of law for giving impunity in exchange for power,” he promised. the popular spokesperson before the European Parliament and vice-president of the EPP, Dolors Montserrat, who in Bucharest also asked for the support of her European political family “to defend the rule of law.”

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Despite the insistent attempts by the PP—and also by Ciudadanos—for the Commission to condemn the amnesty, Reynders has so far tried not to comment on the bill and its surroundings. Although Brussels has been “analyzing the draft” for some time, it will only comment on the text of the law once it is approved in the Spanish Parliament, as a community spokesperson reiterated this week,

The objective sought by the Popular Party in the meeting with Reynders before the parliamentary commission is to “study the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision in Europe, especially in relation to the amnesty law that Puigdemont himself is negotiating with [el presidente del Gobierno, Pedro] Sánchez in Geneva,” the Popular Party said in a statement in Brussels. The request for the appearance has gone ahead with the vote in favor of the European conservatives (EPP), the liberals of Renew and the groups most to the right of the European parliamentary arc, ECR (where Vox meets) and the ultras of ID, while which Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the Left and the Greens have opposed.

According to the PP, which decided to promote this appearance after the Supreme Court’s decision last week to investigate Puigdemont for terrorism in the Democratic Tsunami case, Members of the Venice Commission are also expected to be at this session. At the request of the Senate, but at the request of the PP, which has a majority in the upper house, the advisory body of the Council of Europe prepared a draft report on the amnesty law that passed on day 1, which the socialists understand to support in the law and the popular ones are substantial, which is a setback.

For Dolors Montserrat, it is especially important that Reynders appears “now that Sánchez has given in again to the fugitive Puigdemont to make a law tailored to him, when he publicly said that nothing would be touched about it after promising earlier in the campaign that he would not even approve it. ”. For his part, the PP spokesperson in the Libe commission, Javier Zarzalejos, has expressed confidence that Reynders’ appearance in the European Parliament will take place as soon as possible since, he stressed, “it is an urgent matter that the Commission European Union has to address it without delay.”

The agreement to renew the Judiciary is far away

Popular MEPs will be able to try to convince him next week: Reynders will attend the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, a city where the third meeting of the “structured dialogue” coordinated between the Minister of Justice, Bolaños, and the representative of the opposition will also be held. , González Pons, who this week, also from Bucharest, lowered expectations for the appointment, alleging that “it is very difficult to reach an agreement for the CGPJ with someone who at the same time is humiliating, disavowing and forcing the Supreme Court to correct itself, breaking the separation of powers.” By accepting mediation to renew the CGPJ, whose mandate has expired for more than five years, the Commission set a period of two months to facilitate the “structured dialogue”, a period of time that also expires at the end of March.

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