Congress will vote this afternoon to take into consideration the amnesty law. A parliamentary process that is expected to go ahead without problems with the favorable vote of the coalition government's allied partners. However, for the popular ones the date is marked in red, since it begins the fight against criminal oblivion for which they plan to use all possible legal and institutional initiatives with the aim of stopping the norm.
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, will be the one who opposes the bill, which will be defended by the socialist Patxi López – who was the only one who signed the bill for its registration – in a debate that is expected to be “hard and harsh.” ”. The intention of the president of the Popular Party is to underline the seriousness of the amnesty and will call on the President of the Government to “show his face.” In fact, Pedro Sánchez will not attend the plenary session and will vote electronically, since at that same time he will hold a meeting with the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, to address the situation in Gaza, and then he will travel to Strasbourg, where the next day celebrates the plenary session of the European Parliament. The popular ones criticize this absence and say that the chief executive should be the one to explain the law, since they claim he did not do so in the investiture debate.
In the PP they expect a “tough Patxi López.” With a speech “typical of the radicalism of the convert who has to be forgiven for his past,” said the popular spokesperson, Borja Sémper, yesterday.
For his part, Feijóo will focus his arguments on the unconstitutionality of the law and will outline the profile of the opposition that the PP intends to make in the coming months. For this reason, he intends to show that the first law of the legislature is not intended to help families or businessmen, but rather to forgive “those accused of corruption and terrorism.” And that is, in the opinion of the PP, where the European Union can intervene, whom they trust to stop it.
From Genoa they warn that today is only the first step. Then will come the amendments, the debate in the Senate, which the PP will try to delay as much as possible, taking it until the end of March. Then there will be appeals to the courts.
According to Sémper, “no parliamentary initiative against this law is ruled out.” Among others, they are considering creating an investigative commission in the Senate, to clarify issues such as how much the mediator who attended the meeting between PSOE and Junts earns.
The socialists are aware that the amnesty law remains controversial and difficult to digest for a large part of their electorate. All in all, Sánchez trusts that time will prove him right, as happened with the pardons for imprisoned independence leaders and their "balsamic" effect on the political conflict in Catalonia.
“They are very complicated decisions, complex to explain, but necessary,” he alleged yesterday. And, therefore, he will try to turn this page as quickly as possible, without, however, diminishing its relevance. “Of course, the amnesty debate is important for the entire democracy,” he admitted. But he regretted the right-wing attempt to “monopolize” the entire legislature with this initiative, which, in his opinion, “is not in line with the true concerns of citizens.” Going beyond the amnesty page, he assured in the presentation of his new book Tierra Firma, will be necessary to "focus the energies of our country on the debates that really matter in the 21st century."
Sánchez will have the support of Sumar, who has already announced that he will not present any amendment to the rule, and of the pro-independence parties, which yesterday attacked the PP's position.
The vice president and spokesperson for JxCat, Josep Rius, demanded from the popular parties “that there be no parliamentary filibustering” like the one that, he says, they have encountered in the Senate by the popular parties. For the post-convergent leader, the approval of the amnesty law “is a victory for the independence movement”, since it is a “very important law that reverses an unfair situation”, and that will go ahead because it has “a solid majority” that supports it .
From ERC, its spokesperson, Raquel Sans, opted to oppose “more politics” to the attempts to “boycott” the amnesty by the right and the extreme right”, and for this reason her parliamentary group will ask the Senate Board to reconsider his decision to request reports from the General Council of the Judiciary and the General Council of the Prosecutor's Office, to “sabotage the rule.” She also announced that Esquerra reserves the possibility of “presenting amendments to improve the text”, if they have the possibility of succeeding.
