The former president of the government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero says that he is an “anthropological optimist”, also regarding the knot that monopolizes the current Spanish politics. “Yes. There will be an Amnesty law; I have no doubt about it. First because it is fair, and because sooner or later it had to happen”.
The conviction of the former socialist leader, in response to the general director of the presidency of the Godó Group, Ramon Rovira, is based on moral, political and democratic principles. He has always thought that “the reaction of the criminal law that there was” against those responsible for the process “sooner or later must be reviewed”, and because he is a supporter of the “minimum intervention of the criminal law in political conflicts”.
Although he respects that there are those who do not agree with the amnesty, Zapatero warned that “the ultimate responsibility lies with politics, with the parliaments”, and it bothers him that there are those who question the act of sovereignty that involves approving a law in the Courts, clarifies reference to the right and the ultra-right.
And despite Junts’ controversial vote against the rule this week in Congress, he reduced “the knot” to a “legal technical issue”, on which he highlights the “responsibility” assumed by the PSOE and the post-convergents for medium of the agreement for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. Therefore, if it fails, they will disappoint “Catalan society, which wishes there was an amnesty to talk about other issues”, he warned. But Zapatero persists in optimism, especially after yesterday’s statements by President Sánchez in which he assured that pro-independence supporters are not terrorists.
“Neither Junts nor the PSOE are in a position to see who humiliates who. In history you will not be left with this and both know the moment of responsibility they have”, alleged Zapatero in front of a large post-convention representation that attended a new edition of Foros de Vanguardia which, under the heading “Catalonia- Spain: the meeting”, had as its central theme, needless to say, the future of the Amnesty law and the Spanish legislature.
A “technically complicated” law to which are added, “in parallel”, the “judicial movements” which, as he said, “have a decisive, significant impact on the law”. But the former president avoided criticism of the judicial sphere and used irony: “I believe more in chance than in conspiracy, but chance has not been favorable.”
The truth is that the political debate centers on the definition of terrorism on which the accusation of the judge of the National Court Manuel García-Castellón is based.
Here the former president admitted that there was already a reform of the Penal Code in 2015 as a result of the impact of jihadism, in which “the concepts were greatly expanded”, but he remarked on the question of the deputy director of La Vanguardia, Lola García, that “99% of Catalan society knows that we cannot talk about terrorism in the process, that there are no terrorist independenceists”.
Despite the judge’s “worrying” accusation, Zapatero insisted that he has “confidence in the rule of law” because “we all know what terrorism entails”, he recalled.
The former socialist president is now one of the PSOE’s main political leaders. In fact, Sánchez defines it as “an inspiration” in his latest book Tierra firme, but when he was asked by the delegate of RAC1 in Madrid, Jordi Armenteras, he reduced his role as a mediator given to someone who is dedicated to ” help in what I can”. Of course, he heaped praise on the Spanish president and his management, assuring that “we are at the best moment in the history of Spain; with objectivity” as a result of the economic situation, employment, rights and freedoms…
The former head of the Spanish Executive is also placed in the genesis of the process, as a result of the reduction of the Statute, for which he has publicly admitted his share of responsibility, but his idea of ??the Plural Spain has not changed and now takes effect. “I defend unity, which in a democracy is only possible in the recognition of diversity”, he pointed out, and placed the challenge of the current legislature in “the recognition of the national identity of Catalonia”. It would be about “consolidating a new time, recovering the sense of the shared project and overcoming the pain of all without resentment”.
