Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s ruling socialist PSOE party and the Catalan separatist formation JxCat agreed on Tuesday to make some specific terrorist offences part of the future amnesty law, paving the way for the self-exiled former Catalan president Carles Puidgemont to return to Spain.
The inclusion of very specific terrorism offences in the future extraordinary measure of clemency was one of JxCat’s demands to continue supporting Sánchez’s coalition government with the left-wing Sumar platform, Euractiv’s partner EFE reported.
The future rule, which would pardon those involved in separatist actions in Catalonia between 2012 and 2023, continued its passage through the Spanish parliament on Tuesday, with the justice committee agreeing to amend the text to please both the right-wing JxCat and its left-wing separatist rival, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC).
While the PSOE defended the need to amend the text, the Partido Popular (PP/EPP), the main opposition force in parliament, which considers the future law unconstitutional and has therefore promised to bring the matter before the EU courts, strongly criticised the move.
“The Socialist Party has lost what little dignity it had left. If there is one thing we know in Spain, it is what terrorism is. We have suffered it for a long time (the terrorism of the disbanded Basque group ETA), and Spain does not deserve a government willing to pardon and amnesty terrorists”, Miguel Tellado, PP’s spokesman in parliament, has said.
Justice Minister Félix Bolaños (PSOE/S&D), who was responsible for the negotiations between his party and JxCat in parliament, defended the amendment to the bill.
The government respects its ‘red lines’
The amendments to the text are technical and maintain terrorism as a crime that does not apply when it constitutes a “serious violation” of human rights, Bolaños said on Tuesday.
The “red line” to which the government has committed itself will be maintained, the minister added.
The inclusion of the crime of terrorism in the future law will directly benefit Puigdemont and Marta Rovira, secretary general of the ERC, who has been in self-exile in Switzerland since 2017, for their alleged responsibility in the case currently being investigated by the Spanish courts, called Democratic Tsunami, which dates back to 2019.
If the norm is approved with the changes agreed on Tuesday, both separatist leaders will be able to return to Spain without fear of being arrested by the police and imprisoned.
Terrorist actions excluded from the amnesty
Puigdemont could return without any precautionary measures being imposed on him, although the future law could be challenged in the EU Court of Justice (as the PP has promised to do), even if the latter were to suspend the procedure.
The amendment to the text was approved on Tuesday with the support of the PSOE, JxCat, the ERC, Sumar, the Basque pro-independence parties EH Bildu and PNV, and the group of deputies from various parties (known as the Mixed Group).
The text specifies which terrorist offences will be excluded from the future law.
Terrorist acts will not be pardoned if they have manifestly and directly “caused serious violations of human rights, in particular, those referred to in Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and International Humanitarian Law”.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)
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