MADRID (AP) — Catalan separatist lawmakers dealt a blow to Spain’s government Tuesday by voting against a hugely debatable amnesty law that targeted many of its supporters implicated in Catalonia’s failed 2017 independence bid.
The most radical separatists, who want to ensure that their leader Carles Puigdemont, a fugitive in Belgium, can return home, said the proposed law did not go far enough to protect him.
The bill is expected to go back to a parliamentary committee for redrafting within two weeks, but it remains to be seen what the government and separatists can do to save it.
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This rejection highlighted the fragility of the government, even among its so-called allies. Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez accepted the law in exchange for MPs from two small Catalan separatist parties, allowing him to form a new left-wing minority government that was already planned. last year.
But the bill, which drew the ire of millions in Spain, was rejected after one of the two Catalan parties, Junts (Together), voted against it. The party had insisted on adding clauses that would cover Puigdemont opposing any conceivable legal action. if I were to return to Spain.
“We will continue to negotiate with a 15-day margin. . . There is no explanation for approving an amnesty law with loopholes,” said Miriam Nogueras, a deputy from Junts. He said the Socialists had warned them that the proposed amendments “could mean that the amnesty law would cause disorder in Europe,” but added that they were prepared for such an eventuality.
Socialist Justice Minister Félix Bolaños told reporters that it is “absolutely incomprehensible that Junts would vote against a law that he had accepted” and that he would do so with right-wing parties that need to see them imprisoned.
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Puigdemont’s party made it clear to Sanchez from the start that it would be difficult to please him if he supported his government, but few analysts imagined that it would threaten to derail the very amnesty designed for his supporters.
This defeat shows that the government will be at the mercy of the separatists in the legislature. Sanchez’s minority coalition has 147 seats but needs the help of several smaller parties to secure a majority of 176 of parliament’s 350 seats. Junts has seven seats.
Puigdemont and Catalan independence are anathema to many Spaniards. Puigdemont is wanted by Spain’s Supreme Court for disobedience and embezzlement, and two lower courts are investigating him and other secessionists on possible charges of terrorism and treason.
The amnesty plan has been harshly criticized by conservative and far-right opposition parties that make up about a portion of the country’s population. Many members of the judiciary and the police oppose it, as well as several personalities from Sánchez’s party.
Even if the bill had passed, it would have had to go to the Senate, where the fiercely conservative People’s Party has an absolute majority. The party has pledged to do everything it can to block the bill in the Senate and challenge it in court. .
Sanchez acknowledges that if he had not needed the Catalan separatists’ parliamentary support, he would not have agreed to the amnesty. He also says that without their support, he could not have formed a government, and the right wing could have gained office, having won the most seats in the 2023 elections.
He now says that the amnesty will be positive for Spain because it will further calm Catalonia, and he boasts that his policies for Catalonia since taking office in 2018 have greatly eased tensions that existed between Madrid and Barcelona when the Popular Party was in office.
The last Sánchez government pardoned several imprisoned leaders of the Catalan independence movement, to heal the wounds.
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Associated Press Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain, contributed to this report.
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This edition corrects the spelling of the last one of the member of Junts a Nogueras.
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