Junts will vote against the 'omnibus' decree and the Government's anti-crisis measures

Junts puts the first spoke in the wheel of the Government after having supported the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. Carles Puigdemont's party announced this Friday that it will vote against the three royal decrees that the Government will take to the plenary session next Wednesday: the one that extends a large part of the anti-crisis package that ended on December 31 to 2024, the decree bus which includes other measures related to the receipt of European funds – such as the digital transformation of Justice – and a third related to the Ministry of Labor. Junts has confirmed that it will vote against the texts, which will be debated in a parliamentary plenary session next week along with the total amendments to the amnesty law, arguing that the Justice decree “endangers” the application of the amnesty law. measure of grace to those accused of processes and because they consider that part of the content of the parliamentary initiatives invades the powers of the Generalitat and aggravates its “underfinancing”, according to sources from the independence party.

Junts confirmed its refusal this morning after this Thursday the organization secretary of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, and the general secretary of the independence party, Jordi Turull, held a meeting in Barcelona without reaching an agreement, as advanced The vanguard and this newspaper has confirmed. The pro-independence supporters base their refusal on the fact that the texts have not been agreed upon and also reject processing them as a bill – an option that the Government can give in plenary session to introduce modifications. a posteriori—. Junts urges the Executive to directly withdraw the texts and write new ones. Sources from the socialist leadership insist that the talks will continue. “The last legislature was based on dialogue, dialogue, dialogue and this one is not going to be different. There are no absolute majorities, and this is normality. Without dramas,” they maintain from the PSOE. Government sources add that they will continue negotiating but will not withdraw the decrees.

The problems that the independentistas find for their opposition, with which they had already threatened, are basically three. First, they focus on the fact that the decree on the digital transformation of Justice can “put at risk” the application of the amnesty law, because the changes provided for in article 43.bis would cause judicial cases to be paralyzed when a magistrate raises a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). However, and despite Junts' rejection, the decree does not imply changes with respect to the measure of grace because the jurisprudence is well established, both in European and Community law, and the courts always leave the procedures on hold when there is a question. a prejudicial matter that affects you. What happens is that this jurisprudence was not reflected, until now, in a Spanish law.

Secondly, the pro-independence party rejects the other two decrees because they include measures that, in their opinion, would aggravate what they consider to be deficient financing of the Generalitat by contemplating transfers of services without extra financial resources. And they observe an “invasion of powers” ​​in matters that are under the umbrella of the Catalan Government. The sources consulted by Junts insist that Sánchez's Executive has shown them the royal decrees without room to negotiate beforehand.

The position against the independentists puts at risk the extension of the anti-crisis measures approved on December 27, since for the moment the PP has not clarified what the meaning of its vote will be and even if the Government obtains the support of the rest of the parties, less Vox doesn't give you the numbers either. Some of the social shield measures that remain in force during 2024 are aid for public transport, the reduction of VAT to 0% for basic foods and 10% for electricity and gas, or the suspension of evictions for “households”. vulnerable with no housing alternative.” There are five days left until the plenary session is held for its ratification, so the negotiations could reverse the refusal of the independentists. In previous and similar situations, such as the formation of the Congress Board, Junts kept the pulse until practically the beginning of the plenary session. Government sources assure that the Executive trusts in redirecting the situation, but anticipates that uncertainty could remain until the last minute.

The decree bus that affects Justice It includes commitments made with Brussels for 2023 that had been left pending due to the early elections. It depended on its approval before December 31 that Spain could collect the fourth batch of Next Generation funds worth 10,000 million euros, so the Executive chose to park the laws in which these measures were going to be included and regulated. through two royal decrees—the processing of which is faster—one approved before the elections and the other on December 19. As far as Justice is concerned, the decree bus It includes digital and procedural efficiency measures that, in many cases, are already widespread in the usual practice of the courts, but which until now did not have regulation, which was what Europe requested.

In practice, with regard to the amnesty law, the decree does not change anything because although this matter was not regulated until now in a specific Spanish norm, because in addition to the fact that the jurisprudence is well established, this suspension is also included in Article 23 of the Statute of the CJEU and this has been applied, for example, with the euro-order issued against Puigdemont and the rest of the pro-independence leaders who escaped from Spanish justice, which has been suspended for months because the Supreme Court raised a preliminary ruling. It is also widespread jurisprudence that judges who have matters on the table about which another colleague has asked the CJEU leave that procedure on hold.

Puigdemont's party had already threatened to oppose the text at the end of last month when its parliamentary spokesperson, Miriam Nogueras, explained in detail through the social network X (formerly Twitter) her reservations regarding the decree. In the message published by Nogueras, she also referred to a common criticism from political groups, including the parliamentary allies of the Executive, of the royal decrees: what she calls their “Macedonian” character, that is, that they include a miscellany of measures without thematic connection between them.

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