Spain’s Sánchez seeks Catalan amnesty deal as investiture looms

Spain’s acting prime minister Pedro Sánchez is hoping to reach an agreement with Catalan nationalists on a controversial amnesty law, allowing him to form a new government in the coming days.

Mr Sánchez needs the parliamentary support of the pro-independence Catalan Republican Left (ERC) and Together for Catalonia (JxCat) in order to win an investiture vote. In July’s election his Socialist Party came second to the conservative Popular Party (PP), which failed to form a government last month.

Both nationalist parties have offered their support to Mr Sánchez in exchange for the creation of an amnesty law benefiting Catalan politicians and activists who face legal action linked to their role in a failed bid for secession in 2017.

On Thursday ERC agreed with the Socialists on the terms of the amnesty law and other measures, including the transfer of control of the Catalan rail system to the regional government and the cancellation of €15 billion the region owes to Madrid.

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“Today Catalonia wins,” said Pere Aragonès, the president of Catalonia, of ERC. “And today, with the amnesty law, all those persecuted because of their commitment to [Catalonia] are freer.”

“The amnesty law will make our society more inhabitable,” said Félix Bolaños, minister for the Spanish prime minister’s office. Mr Sánchez and his allies have argued that the initiative will reduce tensions linked to the Catalan independence issue.

However, on Friday evening a deal had still not been reached with JxCat, the party of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who has been living in Belgium since 2017 to avoid extradition. A senior Socialist, Santos Cerdán, has been negotiating in Brussels with Mr Puigdemont, who would be among those to benefit from the amnesty law. Although the main terms of the bill had been agreed upon by both sides, according to reports some of its detail was preventing a final deal.

The Socialists wanted to secure the nationalists’ support and present the bill to parliament before scheduling Mr Sánchez’s investiture next week, in which he hopes to form a coalition with the left-wing Sumar alliance. If no government is formed by November 27th a new election will be called for mid-January, which would be Spain’s sixth since 2015.

The amnesty proposal has drawn a fierce backlash from the right-wing opposition, which claims it is unconstitutional and threatens Spain’s territorial unity. Former PP prime minister José María Aznar warned that Mr Sánchez represented “a risk to Spanish constitutional democracy”. The party’s congressional spokeswoman, Cuca Gamarra, said the PP would oppose the amnesty “by air, land and sea”, and a series of street demonstrations have been organised against it.

The APM judges’ association issued a statement criticising the amnesty, and describing it as “the beginning of the end of our democracy”.

The SUP police union also attacked the initiative, before its content had been revealed, for allegedly including among its beneficiaries officers facing legal proceedings for allegedly using violence against Catalans who voted in a 2017 independence referendum. In a statement the union said it did not want its members to be treated in the same way as “traitors, urban terrorists and embezzlers”.