The amnesty law landed in Congress and not far from there, without leaving the heart of Madrid, the Popular Party activated its particular containment dam in the Senate against an “immoral, unconstitutional and unjustifiable” norm. The Popular Party inaugurated its majority in the Upper House with a control session of the coalition Government focused on what was happening simultaneously in Congress and surrounded the ministers present with an agenda full of questions and motions that forced them to rule on the amnesty.
The afternoon was a coming and going of ministers: twelve were present in Congress when Patxi López defended the amnesty law proposal and the majority went to the Senate when the control session began minutes later. As they finished their interventions they returned to the long session in the Lower House without making any type of statement. The big absentee in both plenary sessions was Pedro Sánchez, who will appear before the European Parliament in Strasbourg this Wednesday. “The law is urgent but he is absent,” the PP criticized.
The new popular spokesperson in the Senate, Alicia García, advanced it before starting the session: the PP will be “exhaustive and forceful” in its weekly review of the Executive. Only in this first control, those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo demanded that the members of the Government clarify why Sánchez “hides” the investiture agreement with EH Bildu, if La Moncloa considers “lawfare” the sentences against the independence movement of the last eleven years or about whether “the stability of the Government can be managed outside of Spain” while prioritizing its meetings with the independence movement and not calling the regions.
While waiting to know to what extent the PP will be able to delay the processing of the law thanks to its majority in the Senate, the main opposition party believes that the first parliamentary steps of the legislature will allow, at least, that the Government is backed by the amnesty after months of negotiations in the shadows. An idea that was reflected in García’s first intervention: “In March, April, May, June and July they said no to the referendum and the amnesty because they were unconstitutional, but now we know that the Sánchez-Puigdemont airlift has been operating since March. A deception monumental to the Spanish”.
As happened in Congress, the popular ones called the day “sad” and “black” due to the centralization of the debate on the amnesty in both chambers. García spoke of “a black day for Spanish democracy.” In fact, the responses of the ministers, in line with what was stated earlier in the afternoon by Patxi López, led the PP to regret that “the shame of Congress” had been “added” to the Upper House, as the senator criticized. Juan José Sanz.
“Stop putting your hand in the dignity of the Spanish people, Spain does not surrender,” launched the popular senator Marimar Blanco against Félix Bolaños, whom she accused of hiding the agreement with EH Bildu, to which the minister responded that it has not been negotiated with the rest of the pro-independence formations because it announced its support for Sánchez’s investiture immediately after 23-J.
