The Government guarantees amnesty to Puigdemont but not that he can return immediately

Raúl Piña Madrid

Madrid

Updated Thursday, February 15, 2024-23:10

• Catalonia The Generalitat assures that Pedro Sánchez will pardon the independentists who are left out of the amnesty

• Junts Negotiation informs the PSOE that the "total amnesty" is a red line after the setback in the Supreme Court

The waves of the Galician elections erased the amnesty from the shore. But now that the electoral landscape begins to disappear on the horizon, the issue that permeates all of Spanish politics is once again revealed. The negotiation between the PSOE and Junts to approve the Amnesty Law is reactivated. Although the communication channel was always open, contacts are resumed with a view to trying to approve the norm in Congress next week.

Carles Puigdemont

's party

continues to express its demand for a "total" amnesty in the face of judicial proceedings that may be carried out. The Government maintains that it will not touch the text under the premise that "Puigdemont, and also

Marta Rovira

, are within" the pardon.

Pedro Sánchez

's team

shows conviction that it is still possible to move forward with the law. "Junts is not going to knock it down," say government sources. Both groups have imposed an informative lock, "discretion" they call it, while, yes, they demand transparency and clarity from

Alberto Núñez Feijóo

regarding his negotiations with the independence party last summer. With the curtain lowered, discrepancy is transferred to the public sphere. A tug of war. But with the belief that either on the 21st, the date set by the Congressional Justice Commission to validate the text again, or using an extension of 15 more days, there will be white smoke.

Junts has told the Government that it cannot trust its word because it does not trust the judicial proceedings that may take place. Puigdemont currently has two cases open: one for terrorism by the judge of the National Court

Manuel García-Castellón

in the Democratic Tsunami case; and another for the crime of treason, by the Barcelona magistrate

Joaquín Aguirre

, within the framework of the

Volhov operation.

Both cases would not be contemplated in the agreed amnesty. García-Castellón believes that this terrorism fits into Article 2 of the

European Convention on Human Rights

, which would not be covered by the amnesty, except for a last-minute change.

"This terrorism thing does not stand"

«Puigdemont is not going to be left out of the amnesty. He is going to be inside because this terrorism thing is not sustainable. He is not going to be convicted of terrorism. "They may have him investigated, but they are not going to condemn him,"

socialist sources involved in the negotiation of the norm told

EL MUNDO .

It is the maxim defended by Ferraz and La Moncloa. "The agreed law covers all the people who were involved in the independence process, it does not leave anyone out." This was expressed this Wednesday by Minister

Félix Bolaños

, visiting Barcelona: «The president and I think what Feijóo did, which is that there was no terrorism in the independence process. There was a broad consensus in society, but those who have to decide it are the judges and the courts.

The last part of Bolaños' reflection is important. The Government has told Junts that the text of the amnesty will not be touched because it assumes that it includes Puigdemont. At ERC they also think so. They are not afraid that Marta Rovira will be left out, and they endorse the Government's position and pressure Junts to support the rule. But within the Executive it is admitted that a very probable scenario is that the fugitive from Justice will not be able to return the day after the Amnesty Law can be approved. «Maybe he has to wait and he cannot return the day after the law is published in the BOE. But he is inside.

This scenario they are dealing with is a result of Puigdemont continuing to be immersed in open processes, continuing to be the subject of judicial investigation and with his future still up in the air. Hence, his training pushes to achieve a "total" amnesty that protects him and prevents him from having to be aware of these open cases. And this is the situation in which the Executive's offer to Junts to modify the

Criminal Procedure Law

(Lecrim) to shorten judicial investigations is framed - something that the PSOE opposed in 2015, when the PP did it, alleging that favored "impunity" -, so that the causes that affect the independence supporters are not extended, they have an expiration date.

"The independentists were many things and many were not good, but these terrorist people were not," insist socialist sources.

This informative lock, "discretion" in their words, causes any information that comes out to become relevant, without any official source from the other party speaking out, either to confirm or deny. It happened yesterday when the Catalan Minister of Social Rights,

Carles Campuzano

, assured that the Executive chaired by Pedro Sánchez is "open" to granting pardon in the future to those members of the independence movement who could be left out of the protection of the Amnesty Law. The Government insists that Puigdemont will be amnestied, although he will have to wait a while to be able to return to Spain without being held accountable before Justice.