Spain’s right-wing leaders on Sunday lambasted plans to grant Catalan separatists an amnesty in exchange for supporting a new left-wing government at a Barcelona rally that drew tens of thousands.
King Felipe VI charged Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez this week with forming a new government, for which he needs crucial support from a Catalan separatist party.
In exchange, the party has demanded an amnesty for those facing legal action over Catalonia’s failed 2017 independence bid which triggered the nation’s worst political crisis in decades.
Photo: Bloomberg
The proposal has enraged the right, which says amnesty cannot be used as a bargaining chip for Sanchez to remain in power. Huge crowds waving Spanish and Catalan flags flooded Barcelona city center for the rally called by Societat Civil Catalana, which is opposed to the northeastern region breaking away from Spain.
Spain has been mired in political uncertainty since an inconclusive July election that was won by the right-wing Popular Party, but without enough support to form a government, with leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo last month failing a key vote to become prime minister.
Now it is Sanchez’s turn, and his Socialists and their hard-left Sumar allies support the idea of granting the amnesty demanded by JxCat, whose leader Carles Puigdemont led the 2017 secession bid, then fled Spain to avoid prosecution and would benefit from the move.
The idea is anathema to the right for whom Puigdemont is public enemy No. 1 and also a red line for some within Sanchez’s Socialist party.
“No amnesty,” and “Send Puigdemont to prison,” shouted the demonstrators, who numbered more than 50,000, Barcelona police said. Organizers gave a figure of 300,000.
“This is not an amnesty that seeks reconciliation, it is exclusively aimed at getting into the prime minister’s office,” said Feijoo, whose bid to become prime minister with the support of the far-right Vox left him isolated within parliament.
“It’s unacceptable that politicians should break the law, some to reach the prime minister’s office ... others to settle their debt with the law,” he said, as Vox leader Santiago Abascal, who was also there, blasted it as “an assault on the constitution.”
Sanchez has shown himself to be a tenacious political survivor with a knack for striking deals with rival parties and is confident he would be returned to power, pledging “generosity” in talks with the separatists, while admitting they would be “complicated.”
He began formal talks with Sumar about renewing his mandate this week, with the hard-left party’s leader Yolanda Diaz, who is due to lay out a legal document on the amnesty proposal in Barcelona today.
“We are aware of Sumar’s proposal about the amnesty as well as those of other parties which is good because it’s a way of trying to resolve the judicial implications” of the 2017 independence bid, Sanchez said on Friday last week.
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