The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, obtained, Thursday, November 9, the agreement of the party of the Catalan separatist Carles Puigdemont, essential for his return to power, in exchange for a very controversial amnesty law which increases the tension in the country.
After weeks of intense negotiations, the Socialist Party of the head of government and the formation of Mr. Puigdemont, Together for Catalonia (Junts per Catalunya), signed an agreement early Thursday morning, reported the two formations in messages to the press, without giving details of the content.
Carles Puigdemont will speak at 2 p.m. (French time) from Brussels, where he fled after the failure of Catalonia’s secession attempt in 2017, in order to escape prosecution by the Spanish justice system. “The agreement is not [only] an investiture agreement, it is a legislative agreement” with a view to ensuring “the stability [of the government] during the four-year legislature,” declared before the press in Brussels, Santos Cerdan, senior leader of the Socialist Party, who negotiated this agreement on behalf of Mr. Sanchez.
The Prime Minister, at the head of the Spanish government since June 2018, is on the verge of succeeding in his challenge to remain in power after having defied the polls which predicted his rout during the legislative election of July 23, two months after a debacle of the left in local elections. The socialist ultimately held up better than expected against his conservative rival from the Popular Party (PP), Alberto Nuñez Feijoo, who came first in the poll but was unable to be installed as prime minister at the end of September due to lack of support. sufficient support in Parliament.
In exchange for the essential votes of Catalan pro-independence deputies, Mr. Sanchez had to give in to their demand for an amnesty law for their leaders and activists prosecuted by the Spanish justice system due to their involvement in the 2017 secession attempt, l one of the worst political crises experienced by contemporary Spain.
A “shameful agreement”, for the right
This law, which should allow the return to Spain of Mr. Puigdemont, will have to be adopted by Parliament, once Mr. Sanchez has been invested by the deputies, probably next week. On Wednesday, the European Commission asked Madrid for “detailed information” on this amnesty project.
Brought to power five years ago in particular thanks to the votes of the Catalan parties, Pedro Sanchez has already pardoned, in 2021, the separatist leaders sentenced in 2019 to heavy prison sentences for the role they played in 2017. But this news The socialist’s concession to the Catalan separatists increased tension in the country. The right and far right accuse Mr. Sanchez, who was opposed in the past to the idea of an amnesty, of being ready to do anything to stay in power.
They demonstrated on several occasions to denounce a “scandal” and the far-right rallies in front of the headquarters of the Socialist Party in Madrid ended Monday and Tuesday in scuffles with the police, images of violence that are quite unusual in Spain.
Organizations close to the far-right Vox party called for new mobilization on Thursday evening against what they describe as a “coup d’état”. “We are facing a shameful agreement with which Sanchez will humiliate Spain” by being supported by a “fugitive,” said the number two of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, in reference to Carles Puigdemont. A rising figure on the right, the president of the Madrid region, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, went so far as to accuse the Prime Minister of establishing a “dictatorship”.
The PP has called on its supporters to gather again on Sunday in all the departmental capitals and another large demonstration is planned in Madrid on Saturday 18. Beyond the opposition of the right and the conservative fringe of the judiciary, which considers that this amnesty is a serious attack on the rule of law, Mr. Sanchez is facing criticism from some of the most moderate barons of his party.
And, once re-appointed prime minister, he will have to deal with a majority that promises to be unstable. Indeed, Puigdemont’s party and the Basque nationalists of the PNV, very close to the business world, will have particular difficulty in voting for the reduction of the working week to 37.5 hours, the flagship measure of the government agreement between the socialists and their main ally, the far-left Sumar platform.