The Popular Party is trying to mend its ways and will vote against a legal reform that it supported on September 18 in Congress and which was voted unanimously: the modification of Organic Law 7/2014 on the exchange of information on criminal records and review of criminal resolutions in the European Union. The Lower House approved, with the favorable vote of all deputies, also of the PP, the removal of the additional provision of this regulation, which until now prevented those who had served prison sentences in other countries from seeing this period counted during their extradition. to Spain to complete the punishment.
After El Confidencial published information on Monday linking this decision of the Congress to an alleged concession to EH Bildu for the situation of numerous ETA prisoners, the PP decided to correct itself and claims that the government deceived it. This is why the people announced that this Tuesday, in the plenary session of the Senate, they would vote against the initiative, a gesture which will have no consequences since no amendment was presented to the text, even if the Upper House did so. rejects, it will remain in force.
The Spanish legislative model places the Senate as the second reading chamber and only takes into account what it approves if it modifies the text that comes to it from Congress. If there is no change, the decision of Congress still prevails.
The initiative approved in the Lower House was registered by Sumar to, according to the party, comply with Directive 2019/884 on criminal records, which “obligates the elimination of any rules that may be discriminatory for citizens of the European Union “. And the minority group of the government recalls that with the modification approved by Congress, the “discrimination” that “experiences any Spanish citizen who has been convicted in a country of the European Union and ended up serving his sentence in Spain, no only for terrorism, finished. Until this change, the sentence already served in the European country where he was convicted could not be deducted.
The Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, also assured that the government had “nothing to do” with the promotion of this modification which, as he explained, is a modification of a law that guarantees the application of the European directive and which is bearing fruit. of a “peaceful and unanimous” parliamentary procedure. “In Congress, all parliamentary groups voted without exception, the PP, Vox… (…) and in the Senate there were not even any amendments,” he declared.
What the PP says today is that it did not really know what it had voted for in Congress. Borja Sémper today spoke of “game” and deception. And the deputy secretary of Mobilization and Digital Challenge of the Popular Party, Noelia Núñez, assured that the PP of the Government “deceived all the parliamentary groups” of the Chamber and “took advantage of it to benefit” from ETA prisoners. The amendment supported by the PP does not mention prisoners of the terrorist group at any time because it refers to all prisoners regardless of their crime.
“If this outrage is confirmed, this indecency to which this Parliament has been subjected and the deception of all the parliamentary groups, of course the PP we will study all the political, legal and parliamentary tools to prevent this from being consummated. , explained Núñez in statements to the media, reports Europa Press And Sémper as she assured that they would use “all the tools” at their disposal against this measure.
The first thing they will do will be to defeat the text in the Senate, which will have no legislative effect.
