Since yesterday, there is no turning back. Pedro Sánchez took a leap forward with the explicit defense, before the PSOE, of the amnesty for those prosecuted for the Catalan independence process. The agreement with Junts is on track. Not closed, since some differences persist, but neither of the two parties is now in a position to stand. The journey made is greater than the distance that separates them from an agreement that the president of the Government still in office intends to be the closure of the crisis that occurred in 2017 between Catalans and with the rest of Spain.
The amnesty law is drafted. The axis of the negotiation has turned on his statement of reasons. At first Junts insisted on the story about the validity of 1-O that the socialists tried to modulate with a weighty argument: the norm will need the approval of the Constitutional Court. The PSOE did not even share with Junts the consideration of 1-O as a referendum. The text will be descriptive of what happened, that is, that there was a consultation declared illegal by the Constitutional Court.
ERC’s latest foray into that debate has not had much progress. Republicans warned last Thursday that they would reject a law that would consider 1-O as a crime. The negotiators of the PSOE and Junts do not need to get into that garden in the preamble that justifies the norm, but in its articles the list of crimes of the accused must appear so that they can benefit from the amnesty. In fact, it is obvious that if there is an amnesty it is because crimes have been committed in the eyes of justice.
The PSOE has put all its focus on the law being constitutional, since it would be a very hard blow if the high court annulled it after the political wear and tear that its approval could mean for the party. It will be the socialists and, in particular, Sánchez, who will focus on explaining the law. This has been agreed with Junts. In fact, the leader of the PSOE already began that task yesterday before the Federal Committee of his party. In the coming days the rapprochement will be staged – it has not yet been decided but a meeting between Carles Puigdemont or some close leader with a socialist who could be Santos Cerdán is not ruled out – until the final signing.
The amnesty is the heart of the agreement, but the wrapping is a political pact. Perhaps it is what has consumed the most time and, in fact, it is not yet completely closed. The negotiators – few for the sake of discretion – have held arduous in-depth discussions about the Catalan conflict and its origins. On the table has been the consideration of Catalonia as a nation (which already appears in the preamble of the Statute) or the existence of a “Catalan national minority”, an initial contribution from Junts that has ultimately been rejected.
For Puigdemont’s negotiators, this national minority made it possible to consider the Catalans and, in particular, their pro-independence representatives, as a people oppressed by the Spanish State. It is one of the paths that the former president’s defense has followed before European justice, since the CJEU, when it rejected the immunity of MEP Puigdemont, opened the door to demonstrating the existence of repression of an “objectively identifiable group.” . But most of the legal references in Europe to a national minority refer to people who belong to a disseminated and retaliated people such as, for example, the gypsies. The PSOE objected that it was not viable to argue this situation in the EU when Catalans have ample self-government and resources, and their language is already spoken in the Spanish Parliament. Voices also emerged in Junts that saw it as a setback regarding the status of the nation.
In the absence of knowing the details of the political agreement, it is likely that it will include references to the origins of the Catalan conflict and the need to resolve it through democratic means starting from this legislature. And there arises an obstacle that still resists negotiators: the mediator. The PSOE accepts that there is a verification mechanism, but Puigdemont demands an international figure. Names from the Church have been put on the table, but the socialists have rejected them. Mediation is in the air. For the former president, an international rapporteur is essential, since he marks one of the key differences with the negotiation table between the central and Catalan governments led by ERC. It is also one of the elements that allows Puigdemont to defend the pact before his own people.
There is a lot of talk about the electoral effects that the amnesty may have for the PSOE, but Puigdemont is also concerned about the reaction among pro-independence voters who consider that what was agreed does not live up to the promises of years, based on the rhetoric of the endurance.
Now that the agreement with Junts is already defined on the horizon of the investiture, the PSOE has begun to negotiate with ERC and the PNV to face the final stretch more than three months after the elections. Sánchez will thus begin a new legislature in which he must deploy an enormous capacity for dialogue with a myriad of forces that only have in common the fight against the idea of ??a central and centralist Spain. Yesterday, all socialist delegates applauded Sánchez, except those from Castilla-La Mancha.
