The PSOE believes that the approval of the amnesty will serve to “have a government that governs with tranquility”

The PSOE has shown relief after the announcement this Wednesday of its agreement with ERC and Junts that will allow, barring unforeseen events, the new text of the amnesty law to be approved this Thursday in the Congressional Justice Commission. It will serve “from here on to have a government that governs with tranquility, but dedicating itself to the people, which is what is important,” said the parliamentary spokesperson for the Socialist Group, Patxi López, implying that the approval of the norm, a demand from Junts and ERC, represented a huge obstacle for the Government. López has been “convinced” that the new wording of the norm that will regulate the amnesty “meets the objective for which this law was born, the reunion between Catalans and with the rest of the Spaniards.” Furthermore, he has defended, the new legislation “gives coverage to all those who participated in the process” and it is a law for “coexistence and harmony.”

The PSOE, ERC and Junts announced at 8:00 p.m. this Wednesday that they had reached an agreement on the text of the amnesty law, which after being voted on in the Justice Commission of the Congress of Deputies will be submitted to the plenary session of the Chamber low. It will be the third version of the proposal registered by the Socialist Party last November, but regarding the details of the pact and the final formula reached, the three signatories have not offered more details in a joint statement, in which they have referred to tomorrow, Thursday for reveal the content of the compromise amendment. The Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, will make statements first thing in the morning.

López, who is in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to participate in the Jerónimo Saavedra conference series, has refused to reveal the contents of the modification that the agreement has brought about. He has insisted that it will be presented in the form of a transactional amendment tomorrow in the Congressional Justice Commission and has indicated that now “the remaining fringes are being drafted”, while defending that “any law that enters Parliament is open to modifications.” Sources in the negotiation point out that the agreement refers to European regulations on terrorism, that is, it will exclude crimes classified by the 2017 European directive and condition them with respect to the European Convention on Human Rights. The text is similar to the latest Junts proposal, but without references to the Penal Code. Hours earlier, the President of the Government told journalists during a flight from Spain to Brazil, where he has officially traveled, that the agreement is based on a change in the law to give “more guarantees” to the independentists, and especially to the leader. of Junts, Carles Puigdemont—whom the Supreme Court has decided to investigate for terrorism—that the rule will include all actions related to process and all the independentists involved in it, also the former Catalan president.

López has emphasized that “what has not changed is the objective, the spirit and the constitutionality of the law, and this will be seen tomorrow”, in line with what was advanced by Pedro Sánchez during the flight that took him from Spain to Brazil. on official trip.

He president of the Generalitat, the republican Pere Aragonès, celebrates the agreement, although he has warned that “there is still a way to go” to be able to “leave repression behind.” “With the amnesty democracy wins,” he added on the social network X.

“Humiliation” according to the PP

What affects the most is what happens closest. So you don’t miss anything, subscribe.

PP sources have reacted strongly against the pact. “The agreement of the socialists with Junts and ERC is evidence that Sánchez accepts that during a specific period of time in Catalonia there were no laws to comply with and that there are no longer sentences to apply,” they point out. They describe it as “humiliation” that Spain asks for “forgiveness from the independence movement by order” of Sánchez, who, the same sources abound, “a month ago flatly denied any further changes to its amnesty law.” “Just two days ago his spokesperson in the PSOE rejected new modifications to the text. “His word is worth nothing,” censure the popular ones, who announce that they will fight the norm “in the institutions and in the courts.”

“Our country does not deserve a president of the Government on his knees,” said the parliamentary spokesperson for the Popular Party, Miguel Tellado, who believes that Sánchez “makes a suit tailored to the taste of Puigdemont,” he stressed in X, to conclude. that “with the agreement with Junts and ERC [el presidente]he bends again once again.”

The spokesperson for Sumar, the party that governs in coalition with the PSOE, welcomed the pact: “We said it: there is an agreement and there will be an amnesty law.” Íñigo Errejón has described that the law “is good for the coexistence of the people” of Spain. “It is fair in democratic terms. It is perfectly constitutional. And it is a victory over the attempts to veto the action of Congress, the seat of popular sovereignty,” he added in his X account, with a last reference to those who predicted that the Executive’s mandate would run aground definitively because of the disputed law. : “To the mobilization of reactionary forces in the streets and in the State we say: there is a legislature for a while.”

In the joint statement this Wednesday at eight in the afternoon, the three forces detail that “after days of joint work, and taking into account the guidelines of constitutional, European and international law, as well as the preliminary opinion of the Commission of Venice, the parliamentary groups of the PSOE, ERC and Junts have reached an agreement, through a single transaction based on the different amendments that were still alive, to reinforce the amnesty law.” The partners assure that it is “a law that covers all people linked to the independence process and that is fully in accordance with the Constitution, European law and jurisprudence and the best European and international standards.”

Puigdemont’s party decided to overturn the law on January 30 and extend the negotiation until now because its party was not sure that its actions would be covered by the grace measure. On February 29, it emerged that the Supreme Court will investigate the former president —as well as the deputy of the Parliament Ruben Wagensberg, of ERC— for terrorism in the Democratic Tsunami casewhere the protests and riots that followed, in October 2019, the sentencing of the process. The PSOE has insisted these weeks that its red line was not to include any type of terrorism in the amnesty, something that they believe would lead to European justice overturning the law.