Pedro Sánchez leaves this Tuesday on an official trip to Brazil and Chile, a journey of more than 20,000 kilometers that will conclude on Friday, with the feeling that the legislature will remain on track while he is there. The agreement between the PSOE and Junts on the amnesty law is a matter of hours, according to various sources from both parties. The decision of Congress to set the meeting of the Justice Commission for Thursday, at 11 in the morning, is another proof of how well the negotiations are on track, as shared by both parties. The feelings conveyed by the two groups are evident: details remain, but the positions have become very close and all that remains is to close the final text and present the agreement for a vote on Thursday in committee; and then, in the plenary session.
Despite months of thaw, suspicion between both parties remains, and the slightest misunderstanding might overthrow a law on which the legislature depends. But this time there is nothing to indicate that this will be the case, unlike what happened a month ago, when Junts already warned several days before that if their amendments were not approved they would vote once morest the law, as they finally did.
The PSOE insisted for weeks that it would not convene the Justice commission if it did not have a guarantee of success. In fact, the possibility of postponing it beyond Thursday was even technically studied. But the decision to bring it together indicates that things are ripe to avoid the risk of failure, although it has been left until the last possible day, with the aim of giving more time to complete the presentation of the agreement. With no room for error, no one rules out that the details of the pact will be known that same Thursday morning, thus giving it greater drama, something that is common in this type of negotiations.
There are only two certainties. The first: the PSOE needs to get out of the crisis caused by the corruption scandal of the Koldo case, and the only way out at the moment is to approve the amnesty and thus make way for the Budgets that would consolidate the legislature. The second is that Junts needs the amnesty because it would be difficult for their world to understand that it would be permanently overthrown. What is not yet known is what each has given up to reach a very complex agreement, of which no details have emerged, although the idea that the socialists have accepted reforms in the law to offer greater guarantees to the independence supporters of that the judges will not be able to make the amnesty come to nothing.
The socialists insist until the last minute that they will not touch the chapter of the norm referring to terrorism crimes, although they do not clarify what changes they will introduce in the text at the request of Junts. Everything indicates that the negotiation has included more guarantees, but without covering any type of terrorism, which was what Junts requested. This condition was unviable for the PSOE, since it would have made it possible for the European justice system or the Constitutional Court to annul the law and, therefore, give way to a huge fiasco that would leave all those involved in the crime without amnesty. process, not just the best-known leaders. The most likely thing is that, as soon as the details are known, as happened with the amendments on the last occasion, the PSOE will say that they are technical issues without major relevance and Junts will ensure that it has achieved substantial changes.
The approval of the amnesty was truncated on January 30, when Junts – fearing that its leader, Carles Puigdemont, would be left out of the grace measure – decided to vote once morest the law that had been agreed upon with the socialists, thus returning it to the Justice Commission. The origin of the clash was the refusal of the PSOE to include the new amendments that Junts demanded so that the amnesty expressly covered all terrorist crimes. It was his way of guaranteeing the shielding of Puigdemont and Marta Rovira (ERC) before the investigation by Judge Manuel García-Castellón, instructor of the caso Tsunami, which saw in the actions of both leaders in 2019 signs of a crime of terrorism with “serious violations of human rights”, which would have left them outside the amnesty. Junts then demanded a new wording of the law, but the PSOE opposed it, arguing that, in their opinion, both Puigdemont and Rovira were included. In the midst of this confrontation, last week the Supreme Court opened a criminal case for terrorism once morest Puigdemont.
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“The last vote has opened a period of reflection that concerns us all. I hope that, as a result of that reflection, next Thursday we will be able to pass a reconciliation law,” Esther Peña observed this Monday. The spokesperson for the federal leadership of the PSOE stated, going back to the vote a month ago in Congress, in which Sánchez suffered his first major parliamentary defeat, that the socialists will not change the sections of the law that have to do with crimes. of terrorism. “The PSOE has taken a firm and clear position, we do not plan to make any modifications. We feel comfortable and comfortable with the document agreed upon with six parliamentary groups, and we understand that on Thursday [la ley] can obtain majority support to be approved in the Justice Commission,” he concluded. Party sources emphasize that the law might have been jeopardized if they had accepted those demands from Junts, because the Constitutional Court and European justice might overthrow it. What the socialist party does not clarify is whether it has accepted other types of changes in the law and what they would consist of.
Barring last-minute surprises, the project should prosper on Thursday in the commission because it has the support of the PSOE, Sumar, Podemos, ERC, Junts, PNV, EH Bildu and BNG, the parliamentary majority that also supported Sánchez’s investiture (who It also had the vote in favor of the Canarian Coalition). The vote once morest PP, Vox, UPN and the Canarian nationalists is taken for granted. The next step in the initiative’s arduous calendar is not clear, because it initially encounters some parliamentary obstacles that these groups will try to solve in the coming days. The Government and the PSOE would like the law, following its forced passage through the commission, to reach the plenary session of Congress as soon as possible. The goal is for it to be Thursday of next week, March 14, but for that it must be on the agenda. An agenda that is already scheduled and in which, for now, that bill does not appear.
Normally, the Board of Spokespersons approves and gives approval on Tuesdays to the matters that are included in the agenda of the following week’s plenary session, but this Tuesday it is not planned to hold that meeting, so there is speculation with two options: that the amnesty plenary session is delayed until the following week (March 19, 20 and 21) or that the president, the socialist Francina Armengol, makes use of her prerogatives and sets a special and extraordinary session, as has happened on previous occasions, and anticipate that plenary session for some day next week. That whole mess has yet to be resolved.
The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the organization secretary of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, finalize the pact with Junts in this context and once morest the clock in the midst of an information blackout. The same happens with Puigdemont’s party, where Jordi Turull, hospitalized a week ago following suffering heart failure, plays a crucial role.
At Junts they defend silence. “Doing it this way is working well for us,” they claim from the party, reluctant to reveal data regarding their demands regarding the content of the amnesty. The argument is to cut off the tap on possible leaks so as not to jeopardize the progress of the negotiation. Without cameras or microphones, there are several party sources who admit that the drafting of the law is on track and that, this time, no surprises are expected when it comes to voting on it in Congress.
Junts defends that its vote once morest the amnesty on January 30 in Congress will serve to give more “robustness” to the articles and limit, in the future, the margin for possible judicial actions that seek to put in check the effectiveness of the judicial relief to those prosecuted for events related to the process. Laura Borràs, president of the party, sent a message to the Judiciary over the weekend and warned that Junts will continue “without giving up anything.”
Puigdemont himself designs, together with his lawyer Gonzalo Boye, Junts’ claims for the amnesty law. Just a small group of people trusted by the former president He is aware of the evolution of the conversations with the PSOE. The final stretch of the negotiation has coincided with the heart condition suffered by Jordi Turull, general secretary of the party and transmitter between Puigdemont and the Junts spokesperson in Congress, Míriam Nogueras. After undergoing surgery twice last week, Turull has not rested and has been involved in the outcome of the negotiation. On Saturday he reacted to statements by Jaume Asens regarding an “imminent” agreement for the amnesty, pointing out that only Junts is competent to report on the status of “negotiations with other political forces.”
But neither the Government nor the pro-independence parties doubt that the agreement will be public soon. “Our mission is for the law to be approved and applied,” said ERC spokesperson Raquel Sans, “optimistic” that the ruling on the grace measure will go ahead on Thursday. Esquerra, which is in negotiations with both the Socialists and representatives of Junts, insists that the “margin for maneuver is very small” regarding a possible change in the text, reports Camilo S. Baquero. “From ERC we have always insisted that the sooner the amnesty is approved, the better; There are people whose lives are bogged down,” Sans concluded. The spokesperson gave as an example the start of the trial of the president of her parliamentary group, Josep María Jové, or the Minister of Culture, Natàlia Garriga: they will sit in the dock from April 10 to respond in the case she is investigating. the preparations for the 1-O vote, declared illegal by the Constitutional Court.
Despite the expectations that this time there will be an agreement, ERC sources recognize the distrust that Junts generates in them. The widespread feeling among Republicans is that Puigdemont’s party has delayed the approval in vain, lurching regarding the content or making people believe that a “magical draft” will stop the “political drift” that they consider has taken over part of the judiciary in its effort to overthrow the law, which would mean the abrupt end of the legislature.
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