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Spain’s opposition has called for EU institutions to stop a highly divisive amnesty law for Catalan separatists, comparing it to laws imposed during the Franco dictatorship.
The draft legislation, unveiled by the ruling Socialist party on Monday, will end the prosecution, prison terms and other penalties for several hundred pro-independence leaders and supporters of an unlawful bid for Catalonia to break away from Spain in 2017.
It is the price acting prime minister Pedro Sánchez has paid to secure a second term in a parliamentary vote due on Thursday — and it has sparked a fierce debate and protests in Madrid.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, head of the conservative People’s party (PP), said the amnesty proposal was anti-constitutional and destroyed the principle of equality before the law.
“We understand that as a member of the EU we have the right to ask the EU to enforce the laws in all member states,” he said, likening Sánchez’s plan to moves by the governments of Hungary, Poland and Romania that threatened the rule of law and sparked opprobrium in Brussels.
“The EU has mechanisms to ensure member states enforce its treaties,” Feijóo said. “We understand that we are in a situation not radically different from those countries.”
Esteban González Pons, PP vice secretary-general, went further than his party chief, referring to Spain’s former right-wing dictatorship. “This is a law typical of Francoism. This was what the laws were like then,” he said.
The European Commission last week expressed concern over the divisive nature of the amnesty plan and asked for further clarifications from Madrid. On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the commission said that it was still awaiting formal publication of the legislation before commenting.
Félix Bolaños, a Socialist minister, on Monday said the amnesty law was necessary to defuse the conflict over Catalonia’s status. “We are returning to politics what should never have left politics.”
Bolaños said the law was “absolutely in accordance with the constitution”. Its preamble highlights that there have been previous amnesties in Spain as well as in France, Italy and Portugal.
The PP compared the Spanish legislation to a draft Romanian bill in 2019 that would have offered amnesty to public officials convicted of corruption. The Romanian government abandoned the plan under pressure from Brussels and the country’s president, who put it to a referendum. More than 85 per cent of voters rejected it.
In Poland and Hungary, conflicts over legislation limiting the independence of judges and other rule of law issues have long pitted national governments against Brussels, leading to EU funds being frozen until the draft laws are amended.
González Pons said the European parliament would hold a formal debate on the Spanish proposal next week. The EU commission will have to take part, but may not have reached a final view on it by that point.
Feijóo said: “What [the Socialists] are looking to do here is empty Catalonia of the presence of the Spanish state.”
He called the amnesty bill “electoral fraud” because Sánchez — who says he has a political mandate for it — argued in the run-up to the July election that an amnesty would be unacceptable.
The plan to pardon Catalan separatists has provoked 11 consecutive nights of demonstrations outside Socialist party headquarters. It was also scaring off foreign investors, Feijóo added.
“Who is going to trust a country where they have done this?” he told a group of foreign correspondents, sitting in front of a screen displaying the slogan #HelpSpain.
Spain’s main business lobby, the CEOE, said the law was creating a situation “in which it is very difficult for economic growth and job creation to take place”.
The amnesty will benefit Carles Puigdemont, the head of hardline separatist party Together for Catalonia, who is living as a fugitive from Spanish justice in Belgium. But it would also apply to “school directors, civil servants, firefighters and police officers”, Bolaños said.
It will cover police officers accused of using excessive force to disrupt the illegal 2017 independence referendum, as well as public order offences and the misuse of public funds related to the push to split from Spain.
The law will not be approved until after Sánchez’s expected investiture on Thursday and the process is likely to take weeks or even months.
Sánchez won fewer seats than the PP in the July elections, but is set to surpass a 176-seat majority in parliament, having won the support of six smaller parties in parliament — including two Catalan groups that demanded an amnesty law.
Additional reporting by Andy Bounds in Brussels
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