Brussels will help unlock the CGPJ within two months

The European Commission will help the Spanish political parties to reach an agreement to implement the main recommendations of its annual report on the rule of law, to renew the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and how to reform the system of electing judges, but it proposes an express process and will limit its intervention to a period of two months.

“The Commission is ready to play its role and guarantee compliance with EU law”, the institution announced yesterday in a press release, more than a month after the Spanish Government sent the request to Brussels, agreed with the Popular Party, that the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, act as “mediator” in the negotiations. With this aim, the statement continues, “the Commission, under the responsibility of Commissioner Reynders, will hold a structured dialogue on the application of the recommendation of the reports on the Rule of Law in Spain for 2022 and 2023”.

According to the approach of the community executive, the exercise will be “focused on solving a problem that persists, and to guarantee that the implementation of the two parts of the Commission’s recommendation”. This dialogue, he indicates in his press release, “will not exceed two months”. The circumstance is that this is a priori the time Reynders has left in the institution, since at the end of March the Belgian liberal will take a leave of absence to defend his candidacy for secretary general of the Council of Europe (an institution outside the European Union).

Although early in the morning, on this issue, Reynders said that it was “too early” to decide how they would respond to Spain’s request, a few hours later it was made public that he had sent a letter to the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts, Félix Bolaños, and to the Vice Secretary of Institutional Action of the PP, Esteban González Pons, in which he informs them that they have “reflected” on how to help the process and invites them to hold a “first joint meeting” in Brussels, which will take place on January 31.

Brussels’ lack of enthusiasm for the prospect of interceding between the PSOE and the PP has been evident from the outset, in view of the risk that the European Commission itself will be harmed by the process, taking into account its long enmeshment and high degree of political toxicity, but also the pressure from the Spanish Government, the Popular and Citizens Party has been strong for it to get involved. However, a few hours before making the announcement, Reynders emphasized that the renewal of the CGPJ corresponds “first of all” to the Spanish political parties, and remarked that “it is not usual” that the Commission has to act as a mediator discussions of a state nature.

Present in Brussels to participate in an informal council of justice ministers, after the news was made public Bolaños appeared in front of the press to applaud the announcement and celebrate that “the PP is no longer in rebellion”. “It is not unimportant news that the PP continues to negotiate” the renewal of the CGPJ, stressed the minister, who presented the response from Brussels as a victory for the Spanish Government. This negotiation “must be the final one”, because justice “does not hold any longer” in this situation, he stressed.

Bolaños emphasized that the position of the European Commission in this matter coincides with that of the Spanish Government, that is to say that “the most urgent, the first thing” is to renew the highest body of judges and then explore the possibility of undertaking the reform legal that the PP requires. This has so far been the Gordian knot of the negotiation and it could be again if the PSOE and the PP do not move from their respective positions, since Alberto Núñez Feijóo and his predecessors at the head of the party have refused to accept the renewal without first agreeing the second affair. In its statement, the European Commission talks about complying with the “two parts” of the “recommendations” included in Spain in the latest report on the rule of law in the EU. The document gives top priority to the renewal of the CGPJ, but says that, “immediately afterwards” a process must be initiated with a view to adapting the appointment of its member judges, taking into account European standards in this area.

For his part, in Madrid, the leader of the popular, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, welcomed that Brussels has agreed to mediate in this matter, and assures that “it is more urgent than ever” to resume the “deterioration of the rule of law” and strengthen the independence of justice at a time when the Spanish Government is drafting “penal codes to the letter of those who have committed crimes”, reports Carmen del Riego. After recalling that he was the one who made this proposal, Feijóo wanted to make it clear that not only will the renewal of the CGPJ be addressed, but “simultaneously”, a law that “deepens the independence of the Judiciary”, which in accordance with the criteria of the European Union, it assumes that the judges who are members of the CGPJ are elected “by their peers”.

Feijóo hopes that with the new law “it will be clear that ministers can no longer be magistrates of the Constitutional Court, and that general directors cannot move from Moncloa to the Constitutional Court”.