Throughout the week, PP and Vox considered it an “error” and even a “deception” on the part of the government that the two groups supported the amendment which validates sentences served abroad for those who are awaiting sentencing in Spain. But both groups have a large number of parliamentary advisors responsible for supporting the work of their deputies both in technical work and in interventions and decisions in the Lower House.
According to the Democrat, the PP has 101 advisors for its 137 deputies, whose expenses total 4,917,709 euros per year. And Vox has 24 advisors for its 33 parliamentarians, for an annual cost of 1,024,854 euros.
But despite all this help, both political forces supported the initiative registered by Sumar throughout the parliamentary process, which is included in the Organic Law by which Organic Law 7/2014, of November 12, on exchange, was amended from the criminal record. information and examination of criminal judicial resolutions in the European Union, for their adaptation to the European Union regulations on the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS).
Both parties approved the legislative change in the Congressional Justice Commission during its September 12 session and also voted in favor of it during the Lower House plenary session on September 18. It was only when El Confidencial published information on Monday linking this Congressional decision to an alleged concession to EH Bildu for the situation of many ETA prisoners, that the right tried to correct itself by launching broad accusations against the government, which she has once again linked to the already disappeared terrorist gang.
None of the councilors of the PP and Vox saw any problem until that moment and even defended the reform both in the aforementioned commission and in plenary. The PP deputy responsible for defending the position of his group in the debate on legislative change wanted to clarify that he was aware of each of the amendments and corrections introduced into the text during the parliamentary process, even if now from the leadership of the party accused the government of “deception”.
“It is a simple transposition of a directive which, before reaching the Chamber, was the subject of more technical observations than amendments, which gives an idea of the type of text which we are talking,” José Manuel Velasco Retamosa began on September 17. Deputy PP.
“It is a directive which – as has already been said – should have been transposed two years ago, that is to say it arrives two years late when it was a question of ‘a relatively simple thing, and the only thing that it does, despite what he has just said, spokesperson for the PSOE, is to show us once again that the government of Mr. Sánchez is more busy oppose the judges and the media only to activate norms and maintain legislative normality in this Chamber, unless the seat of one of them is at stake. members of the Government, as is is produced with the amnesty law,” he added.
This Tuesday, however, his highest boss, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, described the reform that his own party had supported as a “disguised pact between Bildu and the government” and went so far as to accuse the president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, of “lowering our heads so as not to look into the eyes of the families of those murdered by ETA. From now on, for Feijóo, there is a “deliberate desire to release from prison prisoners convicted of murders belonging to ETA”.
This Wednesday, during the plenary session of the Congress, Feijóo made a similar speech, ignoring any responsibility of his group in the approval of the amendment, which was adopted unanimously. In fact, Feijóo gave the government “five days” to withdraw the law: “These days many Spaniards feel disappointed by my group, but a mistake is not the same as the moral turpitude of knowingly promoting a law. You told the victims that you would not reduce sentences, that there would be no shortcuts. If you don’t withdraw the law, you can enjoy this victory, but don’t give lessons. They stand there under the applause of Txapote, Otegi and the others. Keep them,” he concluded.
“Do you know what you are voting for? » replied Sánchez. “He was the subject of seven months of parliamentary treatment. The deadline for tabling amendments has been extended 11 times and you voted for it each time. And their spokesperson said we were two years late. The approved measure comes from Europe. And he always had the support of the popular parliamentary group. Why are they scandalized now? Did they rush you? Or is your group even clumsier than it seems? With you, we never know where the lie ends and the incompetence begins,” asked the President of the Government.
In its staging, the PP interrupted Sánchez’s intervention in the plenary when Senator Marimar Blanco, sister of Miguel Ángel Blanco, assassinated by ETA in 1995, entered the room to give him a big ovation.
