The European People’s Party (EPP) has tabled an amendment to ban pardons and amnesties for corruption offenses in the draft European directive on corruption.
The Spanish EPP delegation in Brussels announced the move on Wednesday, October 11th, stating that the amendment has been signed by EPP president Manfred Weber.
The EU has been working on creating a more robust corruption law following the Qatargate money-for-influence scandal that rocked the Parliament late last year.
The EPP amendment to the anti-corruption directive, though, is a direct response to the situation in Spain, where the acting government is likely preparing an amnesty for MEP Carles Puigdemont and other leaders of the 2017 illegal referendum on Catalan independence. Among the crimes they have been accused or convicted of is corruption, specifically the embezzlement of public funds as money from the regional government paid for carrying out the illegal referendum.
While other leaders of the referendum have been tried, convicted, and served time in prison, Puigdemont and two other MEPs have been fugitives of the law in Brussels for the last six years.
Now Spain’s acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, needs the votes of Puigdemont’s party in the Spanish parliament to form a new government and continue in office. The political demand of the Catalans is nothing less than an amnesty for Puigdemont that would allow him to return to Spain without the threat of being arrested.
With Sánchez also currently at the helm of the EU as its rotating president until the end of the year, the situation also puts the EU Commission in an awkward position.
Indeed, Didier Reynders, the EU’s Commissioner of Justice, showed his discomfort regarding such an amnesty while in Madrid on October 11th for the seminar “Public Service of Justice in Times of Transformation.”
Speaking from Madrid, he stressed that, although an amnesty for secessionists is a “national competency” there are “some limits” especially with regard to embezzlement offenses affecting European funds.
Reynders also stated that he has not yet received any text on which he could officially rule but added that “it may be possible that in the next few hours or days there will be a reference text in the negotiations for the formation of a government.”
Sánchez has only a matter of weeks to satisfy Puigdemont and his party, as he and his potential government are up for a vote in parliament in November. If he fails to form a new government, the country will go to repeat elections in which the Partido Popular, which belongs to the EPP group, will have a second chance to win power.
