Spain to vote on amnesty law for Catalan separatists

Spanish MPs are preparing to vote on the deeply divisive amnesty law for Catalan separatists that enabled the prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s socialist-led coalition government to secure a second term in office after last year’s inconclusive general election.

The draft law covers about 400 people involved in the symbolic, consultative and unilateral independence referendum of November 2014 and the poll that came three years later. It was followed by a unilateral declaration of regional independence that plunged Spain into its worst political crisis for four decades.

Its most high-profile beneficiary would be the former Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium to avoid arrest over his role in masterminding the illegal push to secede from Spain in 2017.

Although the conservative People’s party (PP) narrowly defeated Sánchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) in last July’s election, it proved unable to form a government, even with the backing of the far-right Vox party and other, smaller groupings.

Sánchez was returned to office in an investiture debate last November after securing the backing of the two main Catalan pro-independence parties – Puigdemont’s centre-right Junts party and the more moderate Catalan Republic Left (ERC) – in return for promising the amnesty law.

The move has proved unpopular with many Spaniards. A poll in mid-September showed that 70% of voters, including 59% of the people who voted for the PSOE in July, opposed the measure. The issue has also brought hundreds of thousands of people out on to the streets to protest in recent months. On Sunday, about 45,000 demonstrators gathered in Madrid to voice their anger at the draft law.

While Sánchez argues that the amnesty – which he previously opposed – is needed to help Spain move on from the confrontations of the past, his opponents have accused him of hypocrisy, cynical manoeuvring and putting his own political survival before the country’s interests.

Speaking as the PSOE and Junts rushed to finalise the text of the bill amid enduring disagreements, the PP leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said Sánchez was making a mockery of Spanish democracy.

“This afternoon, Sánchez and the PSOE will carry out the greatest affront to dignity, equality and the separation of powers seen in a western democracy,” he said.

Feijóo said the prime minister had turned politics on its head by “affording criminals the privilege of writing law and granting themselves an amnesty”.

Even if the bill is approved in congress – where Sánchez and his allies have a narrow majority – it will still have to go before the senate, where the PP has an absolute majority. Once law, the amnesty will be applied by judges on a case-by-case basis.

Ongoing judicial proceedings have further complicated political negotiations over the amnesty law.

On Monday, a judge at Spain’s highest criminal court, the audiencia nacional, announced he was extending his investigation into allegations that Puigdemont and other separatists helped direct the actions of the secretive pro-independence platform Tsunami Democràtic.

The judge has alleged that Puigdemont had played a leadership role within the platform, whose actions – such as closing roads and blockading Barcelona airport in October 2019 – “could be classified, in a preliminary way, as terrorism”.

The PSOE hastily agreed to amend the text of the bill last week to ensure that the amnesty would cover alleged acts of terrorism provided they did not involve “serious human rights violations”.

A judge in Barcelona has also announced an extension into allegations that Puigdemont sought to enlist Russia’s support for an independent Catalonia. The offence of treason is not covered under the terms of the draft law.

The government recently appeared to question the objectivity of the judge leading the Tsunami Democràtic inquiry after the environment minister, Teresa Ribera, said he had “a certain fondness” for pronouncing on politically related matters at sensitive moments.

Her words were rejected by the general council of the judiciary, which said they could serve to undermine public trust in the justice system.