The Government of Pedro Sánchez insists on celebrating the endorsement of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to the Amnesty law as the explicit confirmation of the objective of its “brave and risky policies” for “reconciliation,” and to “appease” the institutional and social conflict that erupted in Catalonia in 2017 with the procés independence movement. “Reconciliation has been achieved,” highlighted this Friday the Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, in an interview on Ser.
Now it only remains for the amnesty to be applied “in its entirety,” and to reach all the political leaders who promoted the procés, particularly former president Carles Puigdemont, two years after Congress approved the law, in June 2024, as the minister recalled. And the Government demands that this final stretch of the journey be completed as quickly as possible. “Both the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court have to resolve the pending appeals. And it would be positive for everyone, especially for Catalan and Spanish society as a whole, that this be resolved as soon as possible,” Bolaños demanded.
The minister highlighted, as the best sign of overcoming the institutional, political, and social conflict in Catalonia, that President Salvador Illa has managed to approve his first public budgets, with the support of Esquerra and the commons. “Of course, today in Catalonia there is coexistence that did not exist a decade ago, and there is reconciliation among people who thought differently. Budgets have just been approved in Catalonia, with parties that defended the sovereignty process and independence, and parties that neither defended the sovereignty process nor independence. And today they are understanding each other. That, evidently, is reconciliation,” he emphasized.
But Bolaños turned the focus towards the Popular Party and the far-right Vox. “What is the alternative?” he asked. “Fight, cancel one part of society against another?” he insisted. “The PP and Vox took thousands of people to the streets. What was their alternative? That they continue fighting in Catalonia? Until where, until when?” he questioned. And he wondered if the only goal of the right-wing parties is to “chronify the conflict, confrontation, and tension.”
The head of the Presidency and Justice portfolio criticized that the PP and Vox encouraged protests in the streets, instilling “fear” in citizens by claiming that the amnesty violated the Constitution and broke the rule of law and Spain. “It was all nonsense,” he denounced.
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“Why don’t they apologize?” Bolaños demanded from the PP and Vox. “Why don’t they apologize for the nonsense they told about the Amnesty law, with very serious insults to the president of the Government?” he insisted.
“The solution to the conflict was not to imprison the people who participated in the independence process,” Bolaños defends
Bolaños described as a “politics of revenge” that former president José María Aznar insists that the seditionists cannot be left unpunished. “Politics of revenge does not reconcile and does not unify society,” he warned. And he pointed out that the leaders of the procés “were punished.” “Those who were convicted and those who have not been convicted. Because being away from your country and your home for eight or nine years seems like enough punishment,” he said, referring to Puigdemont and other leaders. “The solution to the conflict in Catalonia was not to imprison the people who had participated in the independence process,” he stressed.
“Politics should not be articulated through revenge and trying to humiliate the opponent, subdue them, and make them comply. On the contrary, in complex societies like ours, the brave thing is to sit down with those who think differently and reach a point of understanding. That is our politics,” he defended.
Also to try to approve new general state budgets with the support of Junts? Bolaños insisted on the Government’s purpose that “the legislature continues to advance.” And he reiterated that, although Parliament is more fragmented than ever in democracy, “to date, in the current legislature, we have approved 68 laws, and we win 86% of the votes.” “The economic situation in our country is the best in history ever known, without budgets,” he argued. “Today, the locomotive of Europe is Spain,” he concluded. And whether to continue or not with this roadmap is what will be voted on in the next general elections in 2027.
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