Spanish Prime
Minister Pedro Sanchez has clinched a controversial deal to remain in power by
offering amnesty to Catalan separatists, raising tensions across the country.
The accord is
aimed at “giving stability to the four-year legislature,” Spanish Socialist
Party (PSOE) official Santos Cerdan told a news conference in Brussels after
negotiations with Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, who is based
there.
Sanchez’s PSOE
finished second in the July 23 parliamentary elections. After the first-place
centre-right Popular Party (PP) failed to form a government, Sanchez was given
until November 27 to cobble together a working coalition or face fresh
elections.
Sanchez needs the
support of Catalan independence parties and has accepted their demands to offer
amnesty to all those being pursued for their role in a failed secession attempt
in 2017.
He had already
secured the backing of more moderate Catalan separatist parties and nailed down
the support of Puigdemont’s more radical Junts per Catalunya party or JxCat on Thursday.
The amnesty law
would cover events back to 2012, Cerdan said.
It would need to
be approved by Parliament to take effect. Puigdemont was due to speak in
Brussels later today.
In recent days, Conservative
Opposition parties and members of Spain’s judiciary have stepped up criticism
of the amnesty plan, with some accusing Sanchez of corruption and abandoning
the rule of law.
The proposed bill
has sparked several days of tense protests in the country this week, with
thousands rallying against it in the capital Madrid.
Puigdemont is
currently based in Brussels, having left Spain for Belgium following the failed
secession bid to avoid prosecution.
Protests
Nearly 7,000
protesters gathered in Madrid, according to authorities, carrying placards
emblazoned with the words “no to amnesty” and “Spain does not pay traitors” on
Tuesday.
On Monday, several
thousand demonstrators gathered outside the headquarters of the Spanish
Socialist Workers’ Party in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.
On Saturday,
Alberto Nunez Feijoo, head of the PP, said at a meeting that “exchanging votes
for impunity is corruption” and vowed at a rally in Valencia a day later: “We
will defend Spain.”
The Opposition
accuses Sanchez, who once opposed amnesty, to be willing to do anything to stay
in power.
Sanchez has
remained defiant in the face of the demonstrations.
In a message on X,
he criticised “harassment” by the protesters and said their behaviour was akin
to “attacking democracy”.
Judiciary concerns
Members of the
judiciary have also stepped up their criticism.
The Professional
Association of Magistrates, a conservative body that represents the majority of
the country’s judges, last week issued a statement calling the measures “the
beginning of the end of democracy” that would “destroy the rule of law”.
After a failed
Catalan secession attempt in 2017, hundreds of people were pursued by Spanish
prosecutors, sparking claims of repression.
The main leaders
of the movement fled abroad, including Puigdemont, or were given jail sentences
of up to 13 years.
Sanchez was
elected to power just a month after the secession attempt, with the support of
separatists. He has made reducing tensions in Catalonia a priority.
In 2021, he
pardoned the nine jailed separatists and the following year his government
reformed the Spanish legal code to remove the crime of sedition, under which
they had been condemned.
AFP
