BRUSSELS – The Spanish government plans to use a controversial law granting amnesty to Catalan separatists to quell the independence conflict, Justice and Presidency Minister Félix Bolaños told POLITICO.
“If there is a feeling in Brussels that the Catalan issue has almost been forgotten, it is precisely thanks to the policy of the government of [Prime Minister] Pedro Sánchez … to tackle the issue with politics, with dialogue, with courage,” Bolaños said in an interview with Brussels Playbook during a trip to Brussels last week.
Now, Bolaños added, “we want to take the final step for this new stage in Catalonia”.
In November, Sánchez’s Socialist Party tabled a bill to grant a blanket amnesty to all those prosecuted for their involvement in the pro-Catalan independence movement since 2012. This was part of a deal to form a minority coalition government with the far-left alliance Sumar and the support of the Catalan separatist party Junts.
The agreement with Junts ended months of political paralysis in the country after an election in July left no party with a clear path to a majority.
But the proposed amnesty law also sparked huge protests, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets across Spain.
The bill also raised concerns in Brussels, with European Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders sending a letter to the Spanish authorities asking for details of the proposed law even before it was tabled.
Bolaños, who met with Reynders and Commission vice-president for values and transparency Věra Jourová last week to discuss the controversial amnesty, said he believed the bill would be approved “in the first quarter of next year”.
Asked about Brussels’ questions about the amnesty bill, Bolaños said “there are no concerns … which I know there are not, because they have told me on the phone and [in person] that there are no concerns about the rule of law”.
The amnesty “is in line with the values of the European Union, the value of dialogue, of coexistence, of overcoming conflicts,” Bolaños insisted.
But a European Commission spokesman said that while the EU executive had not yet said whether it had concerns about the amnesty law, it still had ‘questions’ about the bill.
Last week, Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont warned that he was ready to withdraw his support for Prime Minister Sánchez’s government if there was “insufficient progress” in negotiations on Catalan independence.
He has also said he would be open to working with the conservative Popular Party (PP) to oust Sánchez mid-term.
But Bolaños said these were empty threats because the PP would need the support of the far-right Vox party – which has taken a hard line against Catalan independence – to topple Sánchez.
“It’s true that the Popular Party would like to make a pact with the Junts … in fact they tried during the summer,” the minister said.
“But they failed because the Spanish Popular Party is chained to the Spanish ultra-right … [without which] it cannot achieve a majority,” he added.
Asked if he agreed with Puigdemont’s assessment that there are politicised judges in Spain, Bolaños said it was possible. But, he added, if any cases were confirmed, they would be prosecuted. He cited previous cases in which officials had illegally “fabricated evidence” as an example of actions that could be prosecuted.
New parliamentary inquiry committees, set up at the behest of Junts, will investigate such alleged “lawfare” cases.
“If a criminal case is found in these commissions, it will be referred to the Public Prosecutor’s Office so that it can take legal action” against such judges or officials, Bolaños said.