“We deplore the proposed Amnesty law, the political actions that have led to its adoption and its potential consequences for Europe,” states the resolution approved yesterday by the European People's Party at the start of the congress that is taking place these days in Bucharest, convened to elect their candidate to preside over the next European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
“We Spaniards need your help. "Europe cannot look the other way while a Government persecutes and points fingers at the judges after having pardoned itself," claimed the deputy secretary of institutional action of the Popular Party, Esteban González Pons, when defending the resolution before the EPP delegates, among whom there are nine EU prime ministers, in a speech in which he drew parallels with the situation in Poland during the PiS governments and called for a European mobilization similar to the one around Donald Tusk that would allow the PP to regain power and “restore” the rule of law in Spain. The popular Poles “never turned their backs on Polish society and that is why they are back,” he said.
The resolution states that the Amnesty law “has been drafted by its own beneficiaries,” covers crimes such as “embezzlement of public funds and terrorism” and “could result in the closure of the investigation into Russian interference” in the independence process. Catalan. “As a party committed to the rule of law and European values, we cannot ignore actions that threaten fundamental legal principles and the separation of powers within the EU legal system. We demand firm scrutiny of the Amnesty law from the European Commission,” states the resolution, which is two pages long.
The possible adoption of the Amnesty law today in the Congressional Justice Commission will have consequences. The Popular Party threatens to break the deck and end the negotiations on the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). The new “assignments” of Pedro Sánchez to Junts will make the possibility of an agreement even more difficult, warned in Bucharest the deputy secretary of institutional action of the PP, representative of the party in these contacts that, since February, have had the Commission as arbitrator.
“It is very difficult to reach an agreement on the CGPJ with someone who is at the same time humiliating, disavowing and forcing the Supreme Court to correct itself by breaking the division of powers,” said the PP representative. Pons and the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, have an appointment in Strasbourg next Wednesday, March 13, with the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, for the third meeting of the “structured dialogue” organized by Brussels to promote compliance with the recommendations of the EU's annual reports on the rule of law, which recommend that Spain urgently renew the CGPJ and begin “immediately after” negotiations to reform the method of electing judges.
The European Commission accepted without much enthusiasm the role of arbiter of dialogue demanded by the PP but set a two-month deadline for the exercise that expires at the end of this month, coinciding with Reynders' departure from the community executive. Von der Leyen could instruct another member of the European Commission to continue but Pons left it up in the air that the next meeting will take place.
“In this congress, no one understands that the Government humiliates the Supreme Court and that we give it the excuse of siding with the judges when it is the main enemy of the judges,” argued the representative of the PP, who called on the Government to “elect side” and decide if they are for or against their independence. The Sánchez Government – “weak” and “wormy”, he said – “cannot maintain the red lines in front of Junts or in front of anyone.”
The Amnesty law was one of the issues addressed by Nuñéz Feijóo and Von der Leyen in the closed-door bilateral meeting they held before the start of the EPP congress in the Romanian capital. The leader of the PP has guaranteed his support for the German, who has run as a candidate of the European Popular Party to preside over the Commission for four more years but with "two conditions." “The first, to continue defending the rule of law and to make it one of the reasons why she is going to be re-elected,” Pons emphasized, implying that the PP expects a firmer attitude from the German on this issue. in the next mandate.
To date, despite pressure from Genoa, the community executive has maintained a distant attitude towards the debates in Spain on the Amnesty law and only plans to comment on it once it is adopted. The PP, like other European delegations, has also demanded that it “correct” its policy and farmers “become protagonists.”
