Sánchez withdraws and denies that ETA members benefit from his reform: “There are no sentence reductions”

We had to wait seventy-two hours to have a concrete and precise declaration from the government on the reform which will allow around forty members of ETA – including Txapote, the assassin of Miguel Ángel Blanco – to see their detention period considerably reduced. In total, more than 300 years of prison time will be reduced. It was in his response to Alberto Núñez Feijóo, during the parliamentary plenary session this Wednesday, that Pedro Sánchez addressed the subject, denying the major problem. “There is no reduction in sentences”, he maintained, repeating for the head of the Executive, what about the transposition of the European directive on the exchange of information on criminal records, amended by Sumar, the coalition partner of the PSOE. , is that “what is done is to take into account the years that prisoners have already served in prisons abroad, in accordance with European law. Those who were sentenced to thirty years will serve thirty years, and those who were sentenced to ten years will serve ten years. There is no reduction, ladies and gentlemen of the PP, and you know it, and that is why you voted in favor of this bill,” he declared, warmly applauded by the socialist bench. Sánchez, who had started to respond – as on other occasions, by reading a prepared text – by telling Feijóo that “it is difficult for me to understand your steps”, and asking him rhetorically if “you know what you are voting for, or if you don’t know”, he tried to end the debate, after two days in which the various spokespersons of his Cabinet and his party were deliberately more ambiguous on the question, including the spokesperson of the Executive, Pilar Alegría, during her highly publicized press conference last Tuesday Feijóo urges Sánchez to withdraw the law that reduces the sentences of ETA members “or maintains the applause of Txapote. ” Emilio V. Escudero standard If Abascal accuses Sánchez of “taking money from the Spaniards to pay for the Islamist invasion” Emilio V. EscuderoThe President of the Government stressed that the bill in question “is an obligatory transposition, and I underlines it in capital letters, of a European directive that you [en referencia al Grupo Popular] They also supported Strasbourg and Brussels,” referring to the two seats of the European Parliament. For Sánchez, as he explained from the speakers’ platform, “being part of the European Union logically implies privileges, such as the Next Generation funds, but also obligations, and one of them is to homogenize our regulatory framework to that of the 27 Member States.”, and you know it, and that is why you voted in favor of this law”, he reiterated once again, addressing Feijóo, who listened to him from his seat, Sánchez assured that “this organic law has been recorded in”. March 2024.” and that “he was the subject of seven months of parliamentary treatment. Ladies and gentlemen, the deadline for tabling amendments has been extended up to eleven times in the Justice Commission of the Congress of Deputies and you have voted for each time. Moreover: barely a month ago, on September 10, the representative of his parliamentary group criticized the government and the Chamber for being two years late in transposing this directive. » Sánchez even defended the amendments introduced to the reform, and that removed the additional provision introduced at the time by the government of Mariano Rajoy, to avoid, through a deadline set in the summer of 2010, the advantage that will now benefit so many ETA prisoners, including many who were ETA leaders. terrorist group. These amendments, however, were not presented by the socialist group, but by its coalition partner, Sumar. “The amendments echo a preliminary ruling presented in January 2024 by the Spanish National Court before the Court of Justice of the European Union,” he noted, adding that “they also take as a starting point, and It also seems very important to me to highlight here, for your honors and for the citizens, a bill from the People’s Party of 2014, which also benefits from a favorable report from the Council of State. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen of the group. popular parliamentarian, I don’t know if you didn’t know what you were voting for or if you knew what you were voting for, but seeing the reaction you are blaming the rest of us This must be Mr Feijóo’s policy towards. adults,” he noted sarcastically. In conclusion, Sánchez asked Feijóo “why he changed his mind,” speculating as follows: “Did they push you, Mr. Feijóo? “Your group is even clumsier than it seems,” he said to loud applause from his bench. “With you, you never know where lies end and incompetence begins,” he concluded.

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