The Popular Party threatens to tear up the letters and put an end to the negotiations on the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). The new “cedings” of Pedro Sánchez before Junts will make the possibility of an agreement even more difficult, warned yesterday in Bucharest the deputy secretary of institutional action of the PP, Esteban González Pons, representative of the party in these talks which, since February, they have the Commission as arbiter.
“It is very difficult to reach an agreement on the CGPJ with who at the same time is humiliating, disempowering and forcing the Supreme Court to correct itself by breaking the division of powers”, said the representative of the PP on the sidelines of the congress that the European People’s Party started yesterday in Bucharest. Pons and the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, have an appointment in Strasbourg on Wednesday, March 13, with the European Commissioner of, 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, but the popular leader left it up in the air that the meeting will be held.
The European Commission accepted without much enthusiasm the role of arbiter of the dialogue claimed by the PP, but put a two-month deadline on the exercise that expires at the end of this month, coinciding with the departure of Reynders from the community executive ; Ursula von der Leyen could commission another commissioner to extend the contacts, but it is not clear that she will. Brussels’ recommendations to Spain’s political parties consist of agreeing on the urgent renewal of the CGPJ and the start “immediately after” negotiations to reform the method of electing judges, and the agreement seems distant.
“No one understands that the Spanish Government humiliates the Supreme Court and that we give it an excuse to side with the judges, when it is the main enemy of the judges”, argued the representative of the PP, who urged the Spanish Government to “elect side” and decide whether it is for or against its independence. The Sánchez Government – “weak” and “crooked”, he said – “cannot maintain the red lines in front of Juntos or anyone”.
Pons made this announcement shortly before the start of the European People’s Party (EPP) congress, convened to elect its candidate to chair the next Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and in which the amnesty negotiated by Sánchez was condemned. “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 by the popular Europeans, among whom at the moment there are nine prime ministers of the union
González Pons was in charge of defending the adopted declaration in front of more than 2,000 PPE delegates. “We Spaniards need your help. Europe cannot look the other way while a Government persecutes and points to judges after having pardoned itself”, he said in a speech in which he drew parallels with the Poland of the PiS governments and in which he claimed a European mobilization similar to the one around Donald Tusk that allows the PP to regain power and “restore” the rule of law a. The Polish people “never turned their backs on Polish society and that’s why they’re coming back,” he said.
The resolution states that the Amnesty law “was drafted by its own beneficiaries”, covers crimes such as “the embezzlement of public funds and terrorism” and “could affect 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’s legal system. We demand a firm scrutiny of the Amnesty law from the European Commission”, claims the PPE.
The Amnesty law was one of the topics 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 been postulated as a candidate of the popular Europeans to preside over the Commission for another four years, but with “two conditions”. In addition to “correcting” his agricultural policy, they are asking him to “continue defending the rule of law and make it one of the reasons why he will be re-elected”, emphasized Pons. The PP has made it clear in Bucharest that it expects a firmer attitude from Von der Leyen on this issue next term. So far, despite pressure from Genoa, it has maintained a distant attitude and Brussels only expects to comment on the law once it has been adopted.
