Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will meet this Friday with Partido Popular leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo amid heightened tension between the two over the controversial amnesty law for those implicated in the 2017 secessionist attempt in Catalonia, Sánchez confirmed on Wednesday.
Sánchez accepted the PP leader’s proposal to meet in the Spanish parliament, although he stressed that, in his opinion, the meeting would have to be held at Moncloa Palace, the seat of the executive, and not in the Chamber, RTVE reported.
“I was shocked because it is unprecedented in the history of democracy that when the head of the opposition meets with the president of the government at the president’s proposal, we have to do it in parliament (the Cortes) and not in the Moncloa Palace,” Sánchez said during a heated debate in parliament on Wednesday, Euractiv´s partner EFE reported.
Despite Sánchez’s green light, the opposition leader said he has no expectations of progress in the icy relationship between the two, as the stability of the government, Núñez Feijóo recalled, depends on the backing of the two main Catalan separatist parties (JxCat and ERC) and the Basque separatist formation EH Bildu, which the PP considers the “heir” of the defunct terrorist group ETA.
In the background of the meeting will be the controversial future amnesty law for those involved in separatist actions in Catalonia between 2012 and 2023, including the 2017 secessionist attempt, a rule of grace that the PP and the far-right Vox party, the third force in the Chamber, consider contrary to the Constitution (of 1978).
Núñez Feijóo believes that the parliament is the ideal place for the meeting because national sovereignty resides in the Chamber, and it is good for Spaniards to know that both parties debate there and not “abroad”.
It is good, said the leader of the PP, that “it is known that the government and the opposition speak in the institutions and not in Geneva and that the control of the Government is done in this Chamber”.
Núñez Feijóo was referring to the controversy generated by the recent meeting in Switzerland between members of the PSOE and the Catalan separatist party Together for Catalonia (JxCat), led from self-exile in Belgium by former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, with an international mediator.
Sánchez added that the opposition leader also criticised the recent announcement of an upcoming meeting between Sánchez and Puigdemont in some EU countries, other than Spain, with the aim of “normalising” relations between Madrid and Catalonia.
“It makes no sense” for Sánchez “to travel to Switzerland to try to keep his government in meetings with Puigdemont”, Núñez Feijóo said.
The date chosen for the meeting coincides with a traditional event followed by many Spaniards: the Christmas draw of the state-run National Lottery, which distributes several million euros to the lucky winners every year.
According to the Spanish press, this will take much of the spotlight away from the expected meeting between the two political leaders.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)
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Source: euractiv.com
