A CATALAN pro-independence party has agreed a deal to form a government with Spain’s prime minister – with a new law proposed granting amnesty to all those involved in the 2017 independence referendum.
Pedro Sánchez has secured the support he needed to stay in power as the country’s PM, four months after the election resulted in no single party winning an overall majority in Spain’s parliament.
In exchange for the backing of Junts’ seven lawmakers, the prime minister’s Socialist Party agreed to propose a new law granting a blanket amnesty to those involved in the independence referendum in 2017.
Socialist lawmaker and party official Santos Cerdán announced the deal on Thursday in Brussels after sealing the agreement with the party led by Carles Puigdemont.
“This a political agreement and an agreement for an amnesty,” he said.
The bill, which is expected to be passed with the support of Sánchez’s (below) left-wing allies, as well as other pro-independence parties, could benefit up to 1500 people convicted – or currently on trial – for their participation in different actions, some of which took place years before or after the independence vote.
However, nobody has yet seen the final text of the draft bill and it has led to some tensions with protesters demanding Sanchez not move forward with the deal.
The centre-right Popular Party has called for further protests in every major city in Spain this Sunday.
Meanwhile, the European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders, said news of the amnesty had raised “serious concerns”.
Responding, Spain’s presidency minister Félix Bolaños pointed out that Spain’s government is currently fulfilling caretaker functions and is therefore not able to propose any laws.
He said: “Any bill that may be registered in the Congress of Deputies (Spain’s Parliament) will come from the parliamentary groups and not from the council of ministers.”
Thursday’s deal between Sánchez’s Socialist Party, his allies in the left-wing Sumar coalition, and Junts’ de facto leader, former Catalan president Puigdemont, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Belgium since fleeing Spain in 2017.
The agreement concludes months of political paralysis in Spain, which has been without an effective government since the national elections resulted in a hung parliament in which neither the left-wing nor right-wing political blocs gained enough seats to control the 350-seat chamber.
Sánchez himself is expected to submit himself to a vote in parliament next week, after which he will be able to form his new government.
It has been evident for months that the pro-independence politicians had found themselves as king-makers following the elections.
