Spain’s acting prime minister Pedro Sánchez remains cagey on the question of prosecuting the leaders of the 2017 unilateral Catalan independence referendum, even as the issue moves to the international stage.
Sánchez was in New York last week attending the United Nations General Assembly, in theory, a break from the contentious Spanish politics of the moment, in which Sánchez is in the heat of battle to remain the country’s premier. His most important play will be negotiating for the parliamentary votes of Catalan independentists, whose leader MEP Carles Puigdemont remains in Brussels, a fugitive from Spanish law.
Puigdemont was the president of the Catalonia region in 2017 and key in the unilateral, illegal referendum on the region’s secession from Spain. He is still the head of the Catalan political party Junts Per Cat.
Catalan politicians, who are at the heart of the negotiations for their support of a Sánchez government, have stated publicly that Sánchez has already agreed to offer amnesty to Puigdemont and other Catalan fugitives.
Sánchez has been opaque on the matter with Spanish media, neither outright contradicting the independentists nor stating that he had in fact agreed to amnesty.
At a press conference in New York, reporters brought the issue up, asking the acting president if he would confirm the independentists statements. He continued to play the same game as in Madrid. But this time, he outlined his legal philosophy, which would justify dropping all charges against the separatist leaders. Sánchez explained,
We have respected the work of the courts. We have always done that. I also say, and have always commented, that a political crisis never had to lead to legal action. I remember that when the President of the Government Mariano Rajoy and the Attorney General at that time, José Manuel Maza, opened the door to all these judicial cases through the National Court, I communicated my discomfort to Señor Rajoy.
The president declared that “what we have done during these four years” has been “trying to return to politics what should never have come out of politics.”
Separatists have continually framed the question of Catalan independence as a political one, even in the matter of the region holding a unilateral referendum to secede from the nation. Under Spanish law, the referendum was considered an act of rebellion and also involved the misuse of public funds. Eighteen of the referendum’s organizers were tried and convicted in 2019 for crimes ranging from embezzlement to disobedience and rebellion.
Coming into power in 2019, partly with the help of Catalan and Basque independence parties, Sánchez started immediately granting concessions. He granted a pardon to separatist leaders still imprisoned and legislated changes in the penal code to eliminate the crime of rebellion and reduce the seriousness of misappropriating public funds. Puigdemont and other fugitives are now only facing minor charges for misuse of public funds.
Next week, center-right leader Alberto Nuñez Feijóo will attempt to form a government, though it seems unlikely he will succeed. The deputies of congress who refuse to support him will then be implicitly supporting Sánchez, who will be up for a vote in December, even as the acting PM remains elusive on exactly what he is willing to concede to separatists.
Feijóo is also attempting to negotiate with independentists, but he has made it clear he will not grant Puigdemont a pardon.
