When Pedro Sánchez entered the chamber door this Thursday, the debate was about to end. The Vox deputies had already tried to boycott the session with constant interruptions and cries of “traitors” and “corrupt” to the socialists. Feijóo had called the president a “coward.” The independentists had staged a false unity and celebrated the closing of a political cycle and the president of Congress, Francina Armengol, had called for order on several occasions.
To the surprise of locals and strangers, the President of the Government preferred to save himself the trouble, go only to the vote and send off the historic day with a message on his X account (formerly Twitter):
“In politics, as in life, forgiveness is more powerful than resentment. Today Spain is more prosperous and more united than in 2017. Coexistence is making its way.” He was talking, of course, about the approval of the amnesty law in a plenary session of maximum tension and with a vote without surprises: 177 votes in favor and 172 against. The plenary session ran between the joy of the independentists and the provocations of an extreme right that sought at all times to break up the session. Francina Armengol’s patience prevented the intention of the ultras, who, standing from their seats and in a defiant attitude, chained a string of outbursts against the ministers and the entire socialist bench.
The Government renounced its right to speak and delegated the defense of the law not to its parliamentary spokesperson, Patxi López, but to the deputy Artemi Rallo, who failed to match either the tone or the substance of an intervention that even his own coreligionists described it as “inappropriate and untimely.” The socialist did not refrain, however, from warning Feijóo that “he will be devoured by his own” and Abascal, that he will be swallowed by “the neo-fascist beast that runs through Spain and Europe, a monster that the Spaniards will stop on June 9 ”.
The high and institutional tone that the socialist deputy lacked was already provided in the corridors by the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, when he stated that the amnesty closes a stage “of conflict, tension, confrontation and opens a new one of future and of doing politics within the Constitution.” He also defended that the criminal oblivion rule “has already worked” because it has allowed “the situation in Catalonia to be normalized” and that with its final approval “an era of future and agreement between different parties opens.”
Oriol Junqueras and Gabriel Rufián hug in Congress after the approval of the amnesty law.
All in a day with which the independentists also concluded a stage, but not the Catalan conflict, and in which the neo-convergent Míriam Nogueras did not spare criticism of the judiciary and referred to the amnesty as “a democratic and healing victory.” , while the ERC spokesperson, Gabriel Rufián, directly proclaimed “the first defeat of the ’78 regime.”
A Feijóo harsh in tone, but visibly upset with the provocations of the ultras, this time avoided equaling his Vox partners, although he allowed himself to issue the death certificate of a PSOE with more than 140 years of history and attribute the law to “one man’s ambition.” He was referring to a Pedro Sánchez whom he accused of granting “privileges” to some citizens over others and of offering “impunity” before the courts in exchange for the seven Junts votes that allowed his investiture, which in his opinion is a form of “political corruption” that deserves the immediate call of early elections. It was the umpteenth time in six months of the legislature that he called for the dissolution of the Cortes so that the Spaniards could vote again. He sure won’t be the last either.
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, during the last debate of the amnesty law.
That this Thursday the parliamentary pilgrimage of the amnesty law ends for the Government of Pedro Sánchez is as obvious as the fact that an uncertain judicial journey now begins that no one knows how it will end. The road will not be easy. In fact, Feijóo mentioned the possibility of the judges preventing the execution of the law while Rufián encouraged the democrats not to allow it and the prosecutors of the procés trial handed over to the Attorney General of the State without anyone having asked him a report in which they conclude that the crime of embezzlement is not amnestiable and that the arrest warrant against Carles Puigdemont cannot be withdrawn.
Next flying goal, the Europeans
The law that was born with the political endorsement of more than 12 million Spaniards through their representatives will now have to be applied by judges and courts, who will have the last word, although in La Moncloa they defend that the norm “was de facto sentenced with The result of the Catalan elections” in which for the first time in more than 40 years the independence movement lost its majority in the Parliament closes a political cycle in Catalonia. But this is a circumstance that, although it puts an end to a stage of political, institutional and territorial confrontation, also adds uncertainty to one of the most tense legislatures in democracy.
The next flying goal is the European elections on June 9, which will be followed by the investiture of the next president of the Generalitat. Without being red-and-white and not ‘cholistas’, in La Moncloa they advocate going party by party and, from now on, beyond the decisions that judges and courts adopt regarding the amnesty law, focus all efforts on the elections that they will choose. to the new europarliament. The appointment, in the opinion of the ‘monclovita’ plumbing, will be “very clarifying” to straighten the course of the legislature and put Feijóo in front of the mirror of “an uncomfortable reality” for the PP.
The socialists are confident not in winning the elections, but in that the difference between PP and PSOE is minimal, an optimism that they attribute to the fact that, since the Milei effect, Feijóo has not managed to establish his own discursive framework and has been trapped in the uncomfortable fence delimited by his Vox partners about to reach the halfway point of the campaign. Hence, they add, “he has desperately clung to the non-case of Begoña Gómez”, alluding to the professional activity of Sánchez’s wife.
The Junts candidate for the Generalitat of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, during a press conference
If the PSOE emerges unscathed from the European elections and the Popular Party does not sweep as they predicted a couple of months ago, “the PP will have to change its strategy or replace its leader”, something that is not ruled out in the Moncloa taking into account the continuous interference that issues the Madrid-born Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who this Thursday, without waiting for the result of the plenary vote and even before Feijóo intervened, announced an appeal of unconstitutionality against the amnesty law.
Of course, once the amnesty is approved and if, after 9J, Salvador Illa manages to preside over the Generalitat, both Junts and ERC would lack motivation to continue providing support to the Sánchez Government in Madrid. But that is a screen that La Moncloa does not want to hear about, since they assume that, despite the uncertainty, the legislature will continue its course, that Puigdemont lacks arguments to explore a motion of censure alongside a PP ” thrown into the arms of Vox” and that there will be General State Budgets for 2025. Let optimism not wane.
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