The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has maintained that what is important is “coexistence among Catalans” after the Supreme Court annulled the arrest warrant against the former Catalan president and leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, once the decision of the Constitutional Court to endorse the amnesty for the crime of embezzlement in the procés was known.
“What is important is the message of coexistence among Catalans, the message that with this we are also defending and strengthening the cohesion of Spain, which was put at risk in 2017 precisely due to the inexperience of those who governed this country then,” Sánchez said, referring to the PP and the independence referendum.
Defense of pardons and the amnesty law
During his appearance after the Council of Ministers, in which the Executive once again approved the two royal decree-laws on housing, Sánchez recalled that, regarding pardons and the amnesty law, “many things were said,” and defended both measures as instruments aimed at coexistence and territorial cohesion.
“We did not do them thinking of a political party or an independence politician; we did them thinking of coexistence among Catalans,” reiterated the President of the Government, who insisted that these decisions did not respond to a partisan calculation.
The head of the Executive also maintained that the criticisms that presented the norm as contrary to the Constitution have been disproved by subsequent judicial resolutions. “It was said that it was unconstitutional, that it went against the law, and both the Constitutional Court and also the European Court of Justice have endorsed that amnesty law from A to Z, saying that it is for the reconciliation of societies,” he stated.
Comparison with the 2019 crisis in Catalonia
In his speech, Pedro Sánchez compared the current situation in Catalonia with what he experienced in 2019, when he was already President of the Government. Specifically, he recalled that at that time “Barcelona was set on fire” after the sentence of the Supreme Court which, he said, “outraged” many Catalans because it sent their political leaders to prison.
The president recounted that he went to visit a national police officer admitted to a public hospital in Catalonia and that there he met “many health professionals” and “middle-class people” who, according to his version, were also outraged by the situation.
For Sánchez, both the pardons and the amnesty law responded to a “transversal sentiment” that went beyond those who defend independence positions. “It was a political problem that we had to solve,” he added.
Call to Salvador Illa and look to the future
In this context, the President of the Government has appealed to the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Salvador Illa, to emphasize that now the important thing is to “look forward” and “learn from the mistakes that were made” by his predecessors.
Sánchez has defended that the objective should be to focus on Catalonia moving forward, while recalling that it is “a very important part of our country.”