In Spain, MPs rejected a bill on amnesty for Catalan separatists on first reading

It is a stinging blow to the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and his government, which was renewed only two and a half months ago. Deputies rejected an amnesty bill for Catalan separatists on Tuesday, January 30. Paradoxically, it was the libertarian Carles Puigdemont, the party of the Junts, that voted against this highly controversial bill, considering that it did not guarantee this amnesty application to its leader, the main figure of Catalonia’s secession attempt in 2017.

This rejection at first reading does not mean abandoning the text, which has to return to a parliamentary committee where it can be revised. But it shows the permanent pressure to which the junta is subject to the executive, deprived of a majority without the support of its seven deputies.

Faced with an outcome that seemed unforeseeable until Monday, the justice minister, Félix Bolaños, ruled “Inconceivable that the gents voted against the law he negotiated”And asked the Catalan side “Reconsider Your Position”.

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171 votes out of 350

“The humiliation is daily, constant (…)Every vote is a litmus test »jeered Alberto Núñez Feijo, the leader of the right-wing opposition, who again rallied 45,000 supporters in central Madrid on Sunday against the pardon, which deeply divides Spanish society.

An unlikely ally, the Junts on Tuesday morning sought a vote on an amendment by Mr Sánchez’s Socialists to counter a judicial attack by two magistrates to block the application of the measure to Carles Puigdemont. After the Socialists refused, the gents voted against the bill which received only 171 votes in favor when the required majority was 176 votes out of 350.

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Amnesty “Must be total (…) And leave no one by the side of the road, no one”, warned Miriam Nogueiras, head of junta’s deputies, before the vote. The amnesty bill was a condition demanded by Catalan separatists in return for their essential support for Mr. Sánchez’s mid-November reappointment to a new mandate.

Prevent legal action

Juntos strongly demanded that the text warrant the application of this amnesty to the accused “terrorism”Without possible exception, or “treason”, which is not the case with the current project, Mr. Puigdemont is being threatened with indictment for such crimes by two magistrates. The two judges were accused by the Left of having clear political ulterior motives for announcing, on the eve of the polls, that their probe would be extended for another six months.

If parliament eventually adopts it, the text should make it possible to halt legal proceedings against hundreds of separatist activists and leaders for their involvement in the secession effort, including Mr Puigdemont, who has fled to Belgium for more than six years. This procedure.

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The world with AFP