“No one in the hallways is asking what is happening with the amnesty,” says a European diplomatic source. Brussels may appear in almost every discussion of Spanish politics regarding the bill. But the regulations, which the PP – with Ciudadanos and Vox behind them – have been trying to turn into a European problem for months, generates more indifference than questioning in the diplomatic circles of the Belgian capital or in the European press, and more irritation than real interest in a Eurocármara with many other international and electoral concerns. Even so, the European institutions, especially the Commission in Brussels and the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in Luxembourg, are already preparing for a new attack. The law has been designed to be fought in Europe, given that the Government assumes that there will be obstacles in the Spanish judicial system, which has shown time and again its intention to stop the regulations with which the former president Carles Puigdemont seeks, paradoxically, to once and for all leave the Belgian capital where he has been on the run for almost seven years.
With the first front closed, the opinion of the Venice Commission requested by the PP and which this Friday gave some attention, although in general it validates the idea of an amnesty to resolve this type of conflicts, all Spanish political groups, both Those who aspire to overturn the amnesty and those who hope to see it endorsed are now looking towards the European Commission. Because, although the amnesty is not, various diplomatic sources assure, an issue that occupies or worries the European leaders who will meet again this week in Brussels, the Community Executive, as guardian of the treaties, has promised that it will analyze the law, although pointing out that it will only be pronounced once it is definitively approved. “We are not going to prejudge the final form of the law until it has been definitively voted on and published,” reiterated on Friday, for the umpteenth time, the spokesman for the European Executive, Eric Mamer.
The issue has become a deeply toxic issue that few, outside of the Spanish environment or the staunch militancy of the European People’s Party (EPP), want to comment on. “It is an internal matter for Spain with many aspects,” says a conservative MEP, who does not want to identify himself. His political family, if he speaks, does so to accuse the PSOE agreement with Junts and ERC that the Government gave to Pedro Sánchez. The leader of the popular parties in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, has even accused the president of the Spanish Executive of being a “puppet” in the hands of Puigdemont.
The latest changes introduced in the bill are very focused on paving the way for amnesty in Europe, to whose legislation, conventions and jurisprudence it adheres both in the preamble and in the articles of the text. Guaranteeing adherence to the principles and European and international law is key to ensuring that the political narrative favorable to the amnesty spread abroad, if necessary, but also to ensure the support of European justice for the pardon measure. The evolution of the three versions of the norm that have passed through Congress shows a growing desire for europeizar the text, an objective that has been prioritized as it became clear that some of the Spanish courts that have to decide whether to apply the law were not going to make it easy. Some judges and jurists agree that the text finally approved by the Lower House assumes that the norm will encounter resistance in the Spanish courts and has focused on ensuring its passage in Europe.
Although Brussels’ mantra is – and has been, since 2017 at the latest – that the Catalan conflict is an “internal matter of Spain”, the attempts from Spain to Europeanize it, with great political hyperbole, have been constant: in the first years was from the pro-independence side, in a search, quickly frustrated, to the relief of the popular Government of Mariano Rajoy, for Europe to mediate in the process: “Respect for the law is not optional, it is essential. If the law doesn’t give you what you want, you can oppose it, you can work to change it. But you can’t ignore it,” said three days after the illegal October 1 referendum, the first vice president of the Commission at the time, Frans Timmermans. Paradoxically, it is now the PP that has adopted the European strategy and focuses a good part of its forces on trying to get Brussels to mediate and end the amnesty law.
It seemed that his strategy was endorsed when the Community Executive changed the pace at the end of last year, when there was not even a legal text: the Commissioner of Justice, Didier Reynders, requested more information from the Government of Spain on the matter and reported the “serious concern” that hundreds of people had conveyed to him. An organized campaign had sent thousands of emails to Reynders, other commissioners and hundreds of officials who had nothing to do with justice issues. Finally, Reynders, a liberal whom Ciudadanos and PP like to say they enjoy the confidence of, recovered the discourse that the conflict in Catalonia is an “internal matter” of Spain and closed himself to comments on the law until its parliamentary processing. .
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Even so, as soon as the bill was approved in Congress, on Thursday, the popular MEP and vice president of the EPP, Dolors Montserrat, returned to the fray urging the EU to “start acting” and “stop this dangerous outrage.” “Socialist that puts European values themselves in check.”
The European route through which the amnesty will inevitably pass is through Luxembourg. It is taken for granted that the CJEU will have to rule on the law in response to preliminary questions raised by the Spanish judges who have to apply the rule. The intervention of the European justice system will also be prior to that of the Spanish Constitutional Court, because it established in 2016 that if a judicial body raises a preliminary question about a law, it cannot present a question of unconstitutionality (before the Constitutional Court) until the first is resolved. CJEU sources point out that the average duration of a normal preliminary ruling procedure is usually 18 months. Urgent processing can be requested, but the final decision rests with the European Court itself.
In the Supreme Court, it is assumed that Europe will endorse the law. In general, the judicial journey in Europe of the process has not been favorable for the Spanish judges after more than six years of struggle between the high court and the courts of Belgium, Germany or Italy, the countries to which, since 2017, the handover of the former Catalan president or one of his has been demanded. collaborators.
For this reason, in the high court they fear the second act that can now begin with the amnesty and, also, with the investigation opened for terrorism against the leader of Junts by the Democratic Tsunami case. All roads lead to EU justice, the high court admits. The only thing that seems ruled out is that the Criminal Chamber is going to apply the amnesty directly, because the judges assure that they have doubts about both its fit in European and Spanish law. Given this, the most likely option is for a preliminary ruling to be submitted to the CJEU, which would leave both the Tsunami case and the procés case on hold, for which the Supreme Court has issued a national search and arrest warrant against Puigdemont.
The other option is for the high court to determine that the amnesty is not applicable for the leader of Junts, which, in addition to opening a new lawsuit with those affected, would lead the Supreme Court to reactivate the persecution of the former president in Europe, unless he has returned to Spain and decides to stay even with the risk of being arrested and tried. The high court distrusts that Belgium would end up handing over the former president in the process of the process and considers it almost impossible in the Tsunami case. The historical reluctance of this country to collaborate with Spain in the handover of terrorists weighs heavily (it took 15 years to hand over the ETA member Natividad Jáuregui), but not only the processing of the amnesty law has also fallen like a stone in the Supreme Court, which shows Spain’s intention to close the judicial process of the process, but also the meetings of leaders of the PSOE and Sumar with Puigdemont and even the statements of Alberto Núñez Feijóo opening the door to a future pardon for the former Catalan president.
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