The digestion of the parliamentary defeat suffered on Tuesday, when Junts per Catalunya voted with the Popular Party or the far-right Vox against the Amnesty law for those accused of the process, is being complicated for the Government in the face of the scenario of uncertainty that it also opens for the new general budgets of the State, fundamental for the stability of the new mandate, and therefore for the very course of a newborn legislature. But neither Pedro Sánchez nor anyone in the Executive, at least for now, claim to give up any battle as lost.
This is what the first vice president of the Government, María Jesús Montero, said this Wednesday, and in an interview on TVE she once again justified the PSOE’s rejection of the Junts amendment that sought to include in the bill any alleged crime of terrorism or betrayal of the State in the process in search of a “comprehensive amnesty”, as demanded by its parliamentary spokesperson, Miriam Nogueras, which caused Carles Puigdemont’s party to vote against the norm, which now returns to the previous screen of the commission of Justice of Congress with a new deadline of a maximum of one month for its renegotiation.
The bill promoted by the PSOE in Congress, Montero assured, “had all the guarantees to be a constitutional text,” but the amendments that Junts intended to incorporate “did not have those premises.” “We always said, and we repeat again, that not any amnesty text is constitutional,” he warned. “The one that the Government promoted was, and we also want a text to come out of Congress that has that legal certainty that is essential,” he defended.
On this occasion, unlike in the heart-stopping vote a couple of weeks ago on the first Government decrees, Montero has acknowledged that already on Monday they were very aware that there would be no agreement with Junts, “because the amendment that I had proposed.” But the first vice president has trusted that an understanding can be reached in the new negotiation period that now opens in the Justice commission. “There must always be room for negotiation,” she assured, because she has pointed out that “when there is a clear desire for dialogue on both sides, there are always conditions to continue incorporating issues.”
But Montero has insisted that they are only “technical improvements” to the standard, and therefore not important issues as Junts claims. “This legal text has already been agreed upon up to four times with Junts per Catalunya and also had the approval of the rest of the political groups that are essential to approve it,” he stressed. “This Amnesty law is an opportunity,” he reminded the Puigdemont team.
“We trust that Junts per Catalunya will reconsider,” said the vice president. “Because it turned out and is very incomprehensible that JxCat has voted with the PP and with Vox, two political groups that have made it very clear that the only answer they have for Catalonia is to imprison the leaders of the process, directly outlaw their political parties or use the dirty war”, he criticized. “There is no real alternative to the situation in Catalonia other than the one proposed by the PSOE to promote coexistence and understanding to overcome a political conflict that we should have left behind a long time ago and yet it is still present,” he said. defended Montero.
The first vice president of the Government, and also Minister of Finance, has admitted that Junts’ position may complicate the approval of new general budgets of the State. The accounts have been carried over from the beginning of this year. “The will of this Government is to approve new public accounts,” she reiterated. But she has admitted that “it is still premature to know what approach Junts per Catalunya is going to take.” “We are going to continue working towards this agreement and dialogue, but let’s not forget that the budgets are in force, they have been extended from the beginning of the year,” she said.
Montero, however, did not want to advance events due to a possible complication in the approval of new budgets. “Everything in its time,” he has argued. “Everything has its moment,” he reiterated. “The fundamental thing is that the will for dialogue on all sides continues to be confirmed,” he stressed.
