The PP needs time so that the government can bear the weight of a legal reform which reduce the sentences of terrorists sentenced to many years in prison. And the government wants the PP to pay for the negligence of having supported in Congress and the Senate an amendment to a law that provides for bringing forward the release from prison of ETA members who have committed serious assassinations.
This is why the PP in the Senate decided to delay the approval of the standard for a few days, because the only possible solution is for the Government to withdraw it and agree to prepare a new one without this amendment. The PP considers that if it does not withdraw it, the Government will be solely responsible for the effects of the rule, for not having done everything in its power.
Internally, the incident caused an earthquake within the PP, with internal claims of responsibility for having let the amendment pass and having supported it with its vote.
But Moncloa and the Socialist Group accept the amendment and clearly explain that they will not withdraw the bill and that it will be submitted to the BOE in the coming weeks with the known effect of a reduction in penalties.
What the government does not do is explain, either publicly or privately, the specific reasons why it approved this amendment. They also do not explain why the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande Marlaskapromised never to approve what they now accept.
An internal argument from the government and the PSOE is limited to explaining that the amendment was included in “complete, update and improve the application of European regulations in Spanish legislation (Organic Law 7/2014 and Law 23/2014), with a view to better legal security, in relation to a specific aspect: taking into account sentences served in other Member States to determine the sentence to be served in our country and the maximum limit of execution.”
The government does not explain why it did not include this improvement in the bill that it approved in the Council of Ministers to submit to Parliament if it is a European requirement like that implies. In fact, he waited for an amendment from Sumar to include it.
The PP assures that the government is doing it within the framework of a Pedro Sánchez agreement with Bildu for his inauguration, but neither the Executive nor the Abertzale party confirm this point.
The ministers Félix Bolaños and Pilar Alegría Reference has been made these days to a European directive but, in reality, what has caught the attention is the bill in which the amendment was included, a technical text on legal collaboration between European states.
In fact, it was Sumar who presented during this legislature the amendment to a bill organic 7/2014on the exchange of criminal records and the examination of criminal resolutions in the European Union.
It all started when the government of Mariano Rajoy In 2014, he approved a bill which provided that sentences served in another European country would be recognized in Spain, without distinguishing which crimes.
At that time, the PP government realized that this article could mean the early departure of ETA members convicted in France and included in the parliamentary process a provision so that it would only be applicable from 2010 and, in this way, will prevent it from applying to ETA Members.
This legal change was later approved by the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights and the PSOE government never declared that it wanted to rectify it to extend it to everyone, including ETA members.
Actually, Unidas Podemos presented in May 2021in the previous legislature an initiative similar to Sumar’s current one, but it was not approved. Then it was understood that it was not necessary to approve it by the PSOE.
This Tuesday, the Government, through its spokesperson, Pilar Alegriaassured that the text approved today is identical to the one that Rajoy’s executive approved in the Council of Ministers and sent to Parliament in 2014. This is strictly true, but incomplete because the government itself rectified the rule in the parliamentary process to prevent it. to affect the members of ETA.
Joy also evokes a Report of the Council of State which, as he explains, ratifies the norm. This report, as the government repeatedly explains, dates from December 2023 and actually refers to the bill approved by the Council of Ministers, long before Sumar presented the amendment. That is to say, the report predates the presentation of the contested amendment.
In reality, the report dates from 2013, ten years earlier, and it approves the initial reform carried out by Rajoy, without the subsequent rectification of the PP, the same as that approved today. But that has nothing to do with it, because no one doubts the technical correctness of the amendment, nor even its practical consequences. It would be a different matter if the Council of State now said that we must reverse the above and include the members of ETA.
The government also refers to “A Preliminary question presented on January 3, 2024 by the Spanish National Court before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which specifically questions this Court about the absence in Spanish legislation of “possible corrective measures to avoid the lack of proportionality of penalties in the repression of crimes, when there are concomitant foreign penalties”, “in relation to fully community principles established, developed, inter alia, in Council Decision 2008/675/JHA”.
But this preliminary question has not been resolved by the CJEU, so there is no evidence or idea that this European body will annul or confirm the rule. In other words, there is no decision of the CJEU to be included in the law, only an appeal from a court.
The government also published a video of the PP spokesperson on the standard, José Manuel Velasco Retamosaassuring that the law “arrives two years late”, to show to what extent the main opposition party welcomed its approval. In reality, the MP was referring to the entire standard which transposes a European directive, and not to the amendment included subsequently.
Alegría took advantage of the incident to attack the PP because it was “using the ETA argument to create opposition.” “ETA ended thirteen years ago, it disappeared, it was a victory for all of Spanish society and democracy. On behalf of the Government and all Spaniards, I demand that the PP stop using in a partisan and obscene way what has caused so much damage to the Spanish people. It’s scandalous. I demand that the PP stop this now”, shouted the minister, who insisted describing as “unworthy” the fact that “they are using terrorism to cover up their lack of proposals, projects and leadership”, assured the minister.
