The PSOE and Junts announced last Saturday, after their first meeting in Geneva after the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez, the name of the international verifier – the Salvadoran diplomat Francisco Galindo Vélez – who is already mediating in the negotiations between both parties to “ contribute to reaching a political and negotiated solution to the conflict” with Catalonia. And, before the dialogue table that the socialists have also agreed to reactivate with Esquerra Republicana, the President of the Government himself has confirmed today that this forum will have another verifier, different from that of the negotiations with Junts.
“In principle, it seems that it is not going to be the same,” Sánchez acknowledged regarding the verifier of the negotiations between the PSOE and ERC, in the interview he gave this Monday to Cadena Ser. This forum between socialists and republicans could be reactivate in Barcelona coinciding in time with the announced meeting of the head of the central Executive with President Pere Aragonès, which will take place on December 21 at the Palau de la Generalitat.
In this way, the respective negotiating tables committed to in the investiture pacts of Sánchez of the PSOE with ERC and with Junts, each with its own corresponding intermediary, could be activated before the end of this year.
Sánchez has assured that the meeting of the PSOE and Junts last Saturday in Geneva will be "the first of many other meetings that we are going to have, both outside and inside Spain." But he has defended that in any case these meetings, with Junts and with ERC, have "a noble objective", which is to "restore coexistence and all the bridges that were broken during the fateful 2017." “The goal is worth it,” he insisted. And the head of the Executive has criticized that the right "has shouted to the heavens", hitting itself "in the chest", before the meeting in Geneva. “In much more difficult circumstances, in much more complex negotiations that affected violence and the end of terrorism, I remember the Aznar government meeting in Switzerland with the terrorist group ETA,” he highlighted.
This circumstance – and that it was a government, not a political party, that met with ETA in Switzerland –, as Sánchez highlighted, “puts in the mirror a political right that always looks for any excuse to try to hinder noble purposes.” .
Sánchez has assured, in this sense, that the amnesty law for those accused of the process that the PSOE is now promoting "means resetting the counter to zero", after in the last legislature the Government approved pardons for imprisoned independence leaders. “It is setting the counter to zero, but it is not setting the memory to zero, we must all draw lessons from what happened and suffered in that decade, and particularly in 2017,” he warned.
Faced with the social rejection that the amnesty now provokes, not only among the right-wing electorate but also among socialist voters, the head of the Executive has defended “the beneficial and balsamic effect” that the pardons already had in the previous legislature, to stabilize and normalize the political situation in Catalonia. “I consider it normal that many people from other parts of Spain do not agree or have their doubts about this exception to the rule, both the amnesty and the pardons in the past. But 70% of the Catalan population is asking for these grace measures,” he justified. And he has insisted on the beneficial consequences that the amnesty, in his opinion, will have for Catalonia and for Spain. However, he has insisted that promoting coexistence “will strengthen Spanish democracy.”
“We will not see it in the short term, but we will see it in the medium term. I know that I am not going to count on the applause of the majority of Spanish citizens. These are decisions that obviously generate controversy and controversy. But the whole of Spanish society is going to benefit, and so will the political parties that are speaking out against it today,” she assured.
The socialist leader has recognized that both in the negotiations with Junts and in those that will now be resumed with ERC, in the end they will talk about “the same issues”, that is, the territorial conflict that culminated in 2017. And that, therefore , would like to reach a joint negotiation process, with both pro-independence parties at the same table with the PSOE. “But it seems that right now that is very premature, it is very green, and therefore we are going to have that dialogue with both political formations at different tables,” he assumed.
Sánchez, on the other hand, has clearly recognized the existence of 'lawfare' in Spain. A use of justice for partisan purposes, the recognition of which in the political agreement of the investiture signed between the PSOE and Junts set all judicial associations and all legal agents on fire. The “most paradigmatic case” of this “politicization of justice” in Spain, the President of the Government has assured, is the “kidnapping” that he has reported being suffered by the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) at the hands of Alberto's Popular Party. Núñez Feijóo, by keeping his renewal blocked for five years.
"In Spain there is no problem of separation of powers, in Spain there is a problem that the main opposition party has the Judiciary hostage, imprisoned, captured," he denounced. “We have had five years of blockade and five years of progressive government, there is no need to make a sketch for people to understand the motivations behind this blockade of the PP,” Sánchez assured. “And the consequences are terrible, but not for the judges but also for the citizens, who see how justice deteriorates even more as a result of an interest that is not at all constitutional,” he lamented.
“There is a meaning of ‘lawfare’ which is the politicization of justice. And there is no more paradigmatic case of 'lawfare' and politicization of justice in Spain than this kidnapping in which the PP has plunged the Judiciary," Sánchez concluded.
