If the schedule for returning to Catalonia without the risk of being arrested that Carles Puigdemont announced during the electoral campaign already played with tight deadlines, now the delay in the publication of the amnesty law has added more urgency. The call, this Monday, of the plenary session to elect the Parliament Board activates the countdown to appoint a president of the Generalitat. “With the electoral calendar in hand, I will be able to be present at the investiture debate,” Puigdemont declared before the Catalan elections. By separating his return from the possibilities he might have of being chosen or not, he was underlined in red on June 25, the deadline for the Parliament to propose a candidate for president.
The calculations of Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) predicted that, by that date, immediately after the Sant Joan festival, a big festival in Catalonia, the amnesty would already take effect. The law was approved on May 30, but the text still does not appear in the Official State Gazette (BOE), an essential requirement for its validation. The forecasts that the Government is considering consider making the publication official on Tuesday.
Gonzalo Boye, Puigdemont’s lawyer and one of those in charge of designing JxCat’s demands for the articles of the law, has maintained that the Government of Pedro Sánchez has withheld the publication so that the PSOE would not be harmed during the European campaign. and also because he was “afraid of the electoral push” of the former president. Boye has gone so far as to accuse the Government of doing “many things that border on illegality.”
Doubts about the return of former president The negotiations carried out by the parties in Catalonia to define who takes over, this Monday, the presidency of the Parliament are contagious with uncertainty. A decision that will put a face to the second authority of Catalonia, a position with an annual remuneration of 140,000 euros, but above all it will show who has the advantage in the race to govern the Generalitat.
The application of the law to Puigdemont
The amnesty law was published this Thursday in the Official Gazette of the Cortes Generales and it only needs to appear in the BOE for it to come into force. It has spent more than a week in the freezer after its approval in Congress and the delay disrupts the forecasts and complicates the return plans of Puigdemont, who left Spain in 2017 to avoid being judged for his participation in the organization of the referendum of the 1-O. “We are on the verge of return,” proclaimed this Friday the JxCat candidate for the European elections, Toni Comín.
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Junts defends that its intervention in the drafting of the amnesty was decisive in making “a robust law” and in avoiding procedural loopholes that would delay the judicial shelving of the cases of the processes. The idea has been fueled that the publication of the amnesty automatically implies lifting precautionary measures, such as arrest warrants, and thus opening the doors wide to Puigdemont and those who left Spain to avoid being accountable to the justice. In practice, not everything is announced so mechanical.
The judges of the Supreme Court doubt that a precautionary measure can be lifted before clarifying whether or not an accused can benefit from the law. If it is published on Tuesday, the Supreme Court will open a period for the parties involved in the Puigdemont case to make their considerations on what the procedural path should be. The duration of this procedure is not fixed but is usually ten business days. The times required for processing make it difficult for Puigdemont to reach June 25 with a clear idea about his judicial situation. In that case, returning would leave him exposed to the possibility of being detained.
Comín left Spain in 2017 with Puigdemont and both have shared an MEP seat for the last five years. The now Eurocandidate has proclaimed that the return will be joint and has insisted on the need for Junts to fight to take over the presidency of the Generalitat. The numbers don’t help. Puigdemont won 35 seats, seven less than the PSC, and to take control of the Palau de la Generalitat he would need, in addition to the essential support of ERC and the CUP, for Salvador Illa and his people to abstain from doing so. president.
ERC at the crossroads
The European campaign has conditioned the negotiations in Catalonia. The parties have turned up the volume at their rallies to try to mobilize a population saturated with walks to the polling station. There have been two elections in a month, four in the last year. At the same time, the parties have prevented the agreements they are testing with rival forces from transcending.
After the setback that Pere Aragonès suffered on May 12, ERC retains a valuable wild card in its hand: if it supports Illa’s investiture, the PSC candidate’s path to the Generalitat will be downhill; If, on the contrary, it chooses to give wings to Junts’ claims and helps to forge an agreement with the CUP, the chances increase that the Parliament will enter into a blockade and the appointment of a candidate will be blocked. president. An eventual tripartite agreement of socialists, commoners and republicans achieves the absolute majority. The independence bloc, on the other hand, is far from that majority, even if the identity-based extreme right of Aliança Catalana decided to bet on Puigdemont. A possible electoral repetition in the fall appears on the horizon.
ERC faces the crossroads with its leaders packing their bags. Aragonès has announced that he is leaving it, as has the party’s general secretary, Marta Rovira. The president, Oriol Junqueras, will announce this Monday to the party’s permanent party that he is temporarily abandoning his command duties, waiting to be rehabilitated by the militancy at a congress in November.
Before addressing the intrigues about who stays with the Generalitat, the parties have a first scuffle this Monday. You must vote on the composition of the Parliament’s Board and elect the president who commands it. Her pivotal position makes Esquerra a favorite to take over from the outgoing president, Anna Erra (Junts). The Republicans have floated several names to take on the job, from Joan Ignasi Elena to Ester Capella, but one of Junqueras’ last orders before leaving was to endorse Laura Vilagrà, vice president of the Government of Aragonès. The vote is expected to be tense after the decision of the Constitutional Court to invalidate the possible telematic vote of Puigdemont and Lluís Puig, a Junts deputy who also went to Belgium. Junts and ERC have already advanced their intention to disobey.
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