The president of Esquerra Republicana, Oriol Junqueras, has celebrated the endorsement of the European Union Court of Justice (CJEU) of the Amnesty law. In the words of the republican leader, it is a “great political victory for the independence movement and democrats.” After the European court’s ruling, Junqueras called on the Spanish courts to apply the law “without further delay”: “There are no more excuses. Rights must be restored, exiles must return, and the State must close this chapter after almost 10 years.”
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The leader of the republican party, who is disqualified until 2031 from holding public office, has defended that his party wants to open a new stage: “We do not want to live only talking about repression. We want to talk about democracy, rights, future, Catalan language, housing, Rodalies, schools, climate change, equality. But this will only happen when all rights have been fully restored and the handcuffs have been definitively removed from the independence movement.”
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Junqueras wanted to reiterate in his statement, accompanied by the party’s executive and several deputies from the Parliament and Congress, that although the amnesty is not about the political leaders of the procés, he does hope “to soon embrace President Puigdemont on the streets of Girona or Barcelona, the exiles, and to be able to teach classes at the university again.” It was after this phrase that he again put on the table his willingness to be a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat: “I also hope to be able to return to exercise, if my party and the citizens so wish, any political responsibility with full freedom.”
With the CJEU ruling, Oriol Junqueras believes that the amnesty “certifies that the political conflict is not closed, but confirmed”: “Repression was never the answer and the definitive solution continues to be more democracy. Europe has taken a step in this direction and now it is the State’s turn to do its job.”
At the same time, the republican leader has called the CJEU ruling an “incomplete victory” precisely because there are about 90 people pending to benefit from the amnesty: “A law is not only measured on the day it is approved. Also on the day it is applied. That is why the debate is no longer only about the amnesty, but about the democratic quality of the State. When a law approved by the majority of Congress, repeatedly endorsed by the Constitutional Court, continues without fully deploying its effects, the question is what happens with Spanish democracy.”
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In this line, he has maintained that “democracy cannot accept that certain judges, in a partisan way, end up deciding who does politics and who does not.” For this reason, Junqueras has insisted that the ruling “is not enough” until the total applicability of the law. From Esquerra Republicana they estimate that about 40 people should “immediately” benefit from the CJEU’s response, since it responds to preliminary rulings raised by the National Court and the Court of Auditors, where there are cases affecting 12 people investigated for terrorism and another that reaches almost 35 former senior officials for the expenses of 1-O.
Now ERC considers that a new stage is opening and its top leader has verbalized it: “We do not want to live trapped in the past.” At the end of his statement, Oriol Junqueras already showed a candidate’s tone: “We have to offer the country a horizon again, a collective project, a shared future. We have to be able to inspire and build again, and prepare Catalonia. Catalonia needs to be stronger, with more decision-making capacity, with more sovereignty and the power to freely decide its future.”
The beginning of this new time will be symbolized by Oriol Junqueras tomorrow in a conference in Madrid, where he will reflect more on the CJEU ruling and focus on the fact that “there are no more excuses” for the full application of the Amnesty law.
The atmosphere experienced in the Calàbria courtyard this morning was one of satisfaction and most leaders said it went “better than expected.” However, they admit that although the ruling “brings closer” the possibility that Junqueras will be the presidential candidate for the Generalitat, the “unpredictability” of the Supreme Court must always be taken into account. At the same time, they trust that the Constitutional Court will resolve the appeals for protection in September or October, and that this will be the real “turning point” for the Supreme Court to grant amnesty to the members of Carles Puigdemont’s Government.
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