Raúl PiñaSpecial envoy Santiago de Chile
Special Envoy Santiago de Chile
Updated Friday, March 8, 2024-17:00
Politics Page charges against the amnesty agreed by the PSOE and the independentists: "It is a bad law no matter how much some people jump for joy"
Justice Judges and prosecutors warn that the new wording of the amnesty does not ensure total protection for Puigdemont
Like a relay race.
You reach one point and gain momentum for the next.
Moncloa sees the approval of the Amnesty Law as a starting block in gaining speed in the legislature.
Because the forgiveness for those involved in the process, which has forced them to change the text again to give more guarantees to
Carles Puigdemont
that he will be amnestied, they believe gives them the leverage to rely on the approval of the Budgets.
If Junts publicly rejects any stability pact and maintains that in each vote the "counter is at zero",
Sánchez
is now launching into trying to approve the Public Accounts for 2024. "I hope that as soon as possible we can present them."
Of course, he has not conveyed any guarantee that Junts is for the work, and the votes of its seven deputies are essential.
The amnesty was the rock on which Sánchez bases his mandate.
And the Budgets are the lifeline that could allow us to stay afloat politically.
Within the Government there are different feelings about the possibility of carrying out a negotiation with Junts for Public Accounts again.
There are even those who believe that perhaps the best solution would be to focus efforts on a dialogue for 2025 and avoid new wear and tear in these weeks.
But the President of the Government, as those who work with him say, "is going to continue in his thirteen."
He has decided not to waste any opportunity to show muscle, to show that he has a stable majority, despite his parliamentary weakness, and after the amnesty, the Budgets would grant him that photo.
"The objective of the Government of Spain is clear, we want to approve the General Budgets for 2024 and we also want to approve those for the year 2025 and we aspire to approve those for the year 2026," said Sánchez in an appearance from Santiago de Chile, together with the president of this country, Gabriel Boric, on the last stage of a tour that has also taken him to visit Brazil.
"There is a Government for a while because we are going to do many things in terms of employment, coexistence and social rights."
The machinery is already activated.
Although the President of the Government has stated that negotiations with the parliamentary groups will now begin, the truth is that, as government and parliamentary sources confirm to EL MUNDO, contacts have been developing for weeks.
The dialogue is channeled between the Treasury and the parliamentary groups.
There is exchange of documents and proposals.
There are still no agreements, but progress is being made.
"It would not be logical for us to support the investiture and then not open the door for the Government to have budgets to deploy social and economic policies," parliamentary forces told EL MUNDO.
"We continue negotiating. All this makes no sense without social policies," say government sources.
It is true that the option of extending them is on the table and it is a door that the Executive is willing to cross if necessary.
"It would be good to issue a budget because it sends a message of tranquility, but it is not a pressing issue for Spain," said Óscar Puente, Minister of Transport, this Friday.
"It is not a drama to work with an extension."
But as a summary from the president's team: "The boss is moving forward."
So the order is to do everything possible to get them out.
And the first vice president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, has been dedicated to this for weeks, with the aim of achieving a project first within the Government, working with the ministries to take them to the Council of Ministers and then to the Cortes Generales.
Sánchez's purpose is to continue drawing out the Budgets year after year.
Of course, when expressly asked if he has certainty or guarantees that Junts will support, he did not comment.
Government sources indicate that the groups, including the Catalan independentists, do express the desire to provide "stability" to the legislature.
"We are convinced that there will be an agreement," they say from the hard core of the President of the Government.
To clear this agreement, it was necessary for the Government to rectify itself, as it said that it was an "impeccable" law and that no modifications were foreseen, and finally the text was modified to make the definition of terrorism more flexible again and give more guarantees to Puigdemont that he may be amnestied.
Sánchez takes refuge in the Venice Commission report to justify that what was said was not going to be done was done.
"We have an opinion from the Venice Commission that pointed out some improvements that the bill needed and that is what we have done," he said from Chile.
"The Amnesty bill entered constitutionally and will emerge constitutional and will emerge in accordance with European Law, as it cannot be otherwise for a great democracy such as Spanish democracy."
And not only is the channel with the parties activated, because the Government will only present the Public Accounts project if it is convinced that they will go ahead, but also the entire usual administrative process.
This Thursday, for example, the Treasury called the communities to the Public Investment Committee, an appointment that was held at 12:00 p.m., almost at the same time that the amnesty was approved in Congress.
A call made by María José Gualda, Secretary of State for Budgets and Expenses.
The agenda included the 2024 Interterritorial Compensation Funds, according to the call to which this newspaper has had access.
These funds are intended to correct interterritorial economic imbalances and are created under the General Budget.
The objective that Sánchez has set is to send a message of stability to public opinion.
That despite the corruption crisis of the Koldo case, the evidence that the parliamentary weakness of the coalition means that they are in the hands of Puigdemont and that, as the Government itself already recognizes, the amnesty has a majority opinion of society against , will remain in La Moncloa for four years.
"There will be four more years of a progressive coalition, no matter who it is. It will take a long time for the opposition, but this is democracy," Sánchez wanted to settle from Chile, fighting the opposition's message that it is a weak government. that will end up falling.
The amnesty is a milestone, the Budgets another and the regional elections in Catalonia, one more.
If many in the PSOE believe that once the pardon is in force it is difficult to know how Carles Puigdemont will act and to what extent he will not let the Government fall, this feeling increases with an eye on those elections.
Many in the party and the Government see these elections as a true rubicon.
The goal is to hold on until then.
And approving the Budgets year by year would allow it to overcome all possible obstacles with a little more margin.
The Government estimates the beneficiaries of the amnesty law at 372 and Junts, at one thousand
EFE
The Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts, Félix Bolaños, indicated this Friday that, according to Government calculations, the amnesty law will directly benefit 372 people, including 90 national police officers, who have pending criminal cases related to the
process
In an interview on TV3's
Els Matins
, Bolaños has avoided commenting on when former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont could return to Spain, claiming that he cannot comment on specific cases and ensuring that "this law is not made for anyone" specifically.
Subsequently, in statements to La Sexta, the minister indicated that according to the aforementioned preliminary data that his department is considering among the nearly 400 possible beneficiaries of the amnesty law.
There may, he said, be other causes that they do not know about and given the data handled by Junts, which would increase the number of beneficiaries to a thousand, he pointed out that their figures refer to criminal cases and not others, such as accounting or administrative, which would increase the number.