MPs voted this Thursday for an amnesty law for Catalan separatists convicted or prosecuted for the aborted secession attempt of Catalonia in 2017.
Negotiated by the Socialist Party of Pedro Sanchez with the two Catalan independence parties, whose support is essential for it to be able to govern, the amnesty bill was approved by 178 votes to 172 in the lower house of Parliament, which has 350 seats.
The text must now be submitted to the Senate, controlled by the right, opposed to this measure. Then it will have to return to the lower house, its final adoption not being expected before May.
The crisis erupted in 2017, when the regional administration led by Carles Puigdemont organized a referendum on independence, defying Madrid’s authority as well as a ruling by Spain’s highest court that the latter violated the constitution.
Police forces were deployed to try to prevent the referendum from taking place, which gave rise to demonstrations which turned violent.
The Catalan Parliament declared the independence of Catalonia on October 27, 2017, but failed to obtain the support of the international community. Faced with this failure, Carles Puigdemont and several other senior officials then fled Spain.
The pro-independence Junts party, led by Carles Puigdemont, said Pedro Sánchez owed him the amnesty because of the support he and his party gave him to stay in power.
Pedro Sánchez’s party had great difficulty developing a bill that would satisfy the separatists. Parliament rejected an earlier version of the bill at the end of January when Junts said it did not do enough to protect Carles Puigdemont. The bill was then referred to a parliamentary committee, where it was amended to meet Junts’ expectations.
Carles Puigdemont now lives in Belgium, where he became a member of the European Parliament. A fugitive from Spanish justice, he considers himself a political exile.
