The former president of the Government Felipe González has commented on the statements that his successor José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero made yesterday in defense of the amnesty, the demand of the pro-independence parties for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, and has assured: “I did not understand anything, and that I listened to it carefully.”
In an interview on Antena3, González has positioned himself against the opinion professed by his successor at the helm of the PSOE and the Spanish executive last Monday on Onda Cero. Zapatero ran in favor of amnesty, including Puigdemont, while his predecessor has stated that “in the same way that I said I was in favor of pardons, I say today that I am against amnesty.”
Despite everything, González has avoided criticizing his successors for “their changes of opinion” and has pointed out that “to rectify it is wise and foolish to do it daily,” after indicating that after the July 23 elections, the leader of the PSC, Salvador Illa, rejected both amnesty and self-determination. In any case, González recalled that Sánchez had been against the type of amnesty proposed by the independentists and that “we do not know the text that the Government is going to present and the reference is what Puigdemont and his people say.”
In the opinion of the former president, the pro-independence amnesty proposal “does not ask us to forgive them. They ask that we recognize that what they did is the right thing and that what the State and therefore its institutions did was repressive and did not respect freedoms.” Given this, González has clarified his position: “Attitude to forgive? Well. Attitude to ask for forgiveness? No,” González said after remembering that at the time he was in favor of pardons for the prisoners of the process.
He has also warned of the problem that may arise from granting an amnesty to the crime of “embezzlement” for political reasons. If this were the case, the concession should be extended to other cases where this same crime has occurred, which, according to González, would mean the “rupture of equality” between citizens.
The former president has been clear on this, and despite emphasizing that Sánchez would not approve the proposal of not needing the votes of Junts to achieve his investiture, he has assured that politicians should not “drag” society towards “this polarization that is beginning to alter coexistence”, since it is essential to avoid confrontation between Spaniards “because the big issues will always need majority agreements, not from half of society against the other half.”
Thus he has shared his “old man’s concern” stating that “I just want my children’s children not to get into a mess of coexistence, which is deteriorating at cruising speed.” “The tension in Spain is from the top down. When are we going to leave the citizens alone?” added the former president.
In this sense, he has charged against the PP, whom he has reproached for having “made all the mistakes that can be made and more” and that he wanted the votes of the PSOE, spoke of repealing ‘sanchismo’ and also agreed with Vox…” He is not even “capable of fulfilling the constitutional mandate of renewing the council of the judiciary for so many years,” it has disfigured him.
Regarding the conflict between Israel and Palestine, González has shown his confusion because Podemos “does not understand” the Hamas attack against Israel as a “terrorist act”, something that in his opinion is “impossible to conceal.” He has also stated that Sumar’s request for recognition of the State of Palestine, which would be included in a future coalition agreement, is a sign of “lack of memory” and “quite a bit of ignorance.”
For this reason, he recalled that Spain has a representative of the Palestinian Authority and that Congress practically unanimously approved that representation at the diplomatic level in 2014, in addition to recalling that in Madrid, in 1991, an international Arab conference was held for the first time in history. -Israeli for peace.
The former president has taken the opportunity to distance Sumar’s policy from the thinking of the “hard core” of the Government in foreign policy, of President Pedro Sánchez and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, who have marked, together with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, a “quite impeccable” position regarding the situation in the Middle East, and added that “the nuances that have been introduced in Humanitarian Law, the truth is that they have been, among other things, starring mainly Borrell from the first minute”.
