Sánchez’s hopes for swift renewal dashed as amnesty law talks drag on

Negotiators from acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE (S&D) and the Catalan separatist formation JxCat have dashed hopes of Sanchez securing a renewed mandate this week, as the negotiating parties said they needed more time to work out the final details of the amnesty law.

Negotiators from acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE (S&D) and the Catalan separatist formation JxCat) announced that they needed more time to finalise the last details of an amnesty law for those involved in the 2017 secessionist attempt: the key to a new term for the Socialist candidate.

Although sources close to the negotiations, which are taking place in Brussels in an atmosphere of almost total secrecy, assured on Monday that the pact between the two sides was very close and that only “technical details” remained, on Tuesday, optimism gave way to caution, EFE and El País reported.

Speaking to the media in Brussels, sources from both sides confirmed on Tuesday that they do not have a deadline this week.

“We don’t have a deadline until 27 November”, sources from both parties told EFE, referring to the final and official deadline for appointing a new prime minister if snap elections, which would only be called in January 2024, are to be avoided.

The same sources assured that they are still “working” and “moving forward” to try to finalise “an important law, the first amnesty law of democracy”, apart from that of 1977.

“It is important to do a good job, therefore, we have no date set,” the sources added.

PSOE´s third in command, Santos Cerdán, has been in Brussels since last Sunday, and the former Catalan president and leader of JxCat, Carles Puigdemont, spent all Tuesday morning in his office at the European Parliament with his negotiating team, EFE reported.

Although negotiations between the two parties continue with the exchange of documents, Puigdemont and Cerdán have not met in person since Monday of last week when the “Brussels photo” was taken between the two.

Amnesty and ‘lawfare’ against Catalan separatists

“The talks do not stop, except for the pause on Monday night. We cannot give a time horizon,” a source close to the negotiations told EFE on Tuesday.

JxCat wants the future amnesty law also to benefit cases of “lawfare” that are not directly linked to the Catalan independence movement in recent years but involve a “strategic use of laws to harm dissidents or political rivals”, as Puigdemont has described it.

The main Catalan separatist parties, in addition to JxCat, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), in the regional government of Catalonia, consider that a “judicial war” (“lawfare”) has been waged against their leaders, among them Puigdemont, self-exiled in Belgium since 2017, by Spanish judges and magistrates exclusively for political reasons.

Sánchez needs a majority of 176 votes to be sworn in as the new prime minister.

The PSOE was confident that the investiture debate of the Socialist candidate, who plans to form a coalition government with the progressive platform Sumar, would take place this Thursday or Friday, but now that prospect seems almost impossible.

Meanwhile, the PSOE on Tuesday sharply criticised right-wing party Partido Popular (EPP) and far-right group VOX for allegedly inciting violence at their jointly called protest in front of PSOE’s headquarters, where around 3,800 people gathered in Madrid on Monday.

While protestors chanted slogans such as “Pedro Sánchez to prison”, “Puigdemont to prison”, “Freedom”, or “Spain is not for sale” in protest of the government’s ‘humiliation’ for accepting the controversial amnesty law, police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)