The week of pardons

MadridEverything was prepared so that the decision would initially go unnoticed taking advantage of the summer heat wave. This was done with the intention of causing a delay so that the Council of Ministers could pass the approval in time for the end of July so that the combination of the 'vaccine summer' and economic recovery, would make people quickly forget about the political cost of political prisoners.

But the four weeks of intense campaigning from the Spanish government have borne more fruit than expected and Pedro Sánchez now believes that it is even possible to profit from the decision to grant the pardons.

It is far from the circumstances under which the Spanish President had to leave the Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona, even rebuked by workers, just after the sentence of the Catalan independence bid in 2019. Then he defended the full compliance of the sentence. Now the strategy of the first secretary of the PSC, Miquel Iceta, awarded the Ministry of Territorial Policy, has triumphed. The votes of ERC are essential for the legislature to pass.

The initial turn of the independence movement -with the endorsement first of the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, and then the leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, through a letter in the ARA-,followed by the turn of the Spanish and Catalan establishments and the Catalan Church, gave way to a key week for Sánchez. The Spanish President will defend his position on Monday in front of the Spanish Parliament.

The Spanish President will defend its position on the pardons before some 300 institutional representatives, politicians, organizations and associations - such as Societat Civil Catalana - in an event at the Gran Teatre del Liceu titled Reencuentro: a project for the future for all of Spain. The objective is that it is the penultimate to the definitive decision of the Council of Ministers this Tuesday regarding the pardoning of the nine independentist leaders that are still serving the sentence imposed by the Supreme Court -the disqualification of the former ministers Santi Vila, Carles Mundó and Meritxell Borràs ended two weeks ago. If the Spanish government does not run into last-minute technical problems, which would force it to postpone until next Tuesday, the pardons will be granted this Tuesday and the political prisoners would have to leave the prisons.

The Government has already confirmed that it will not be present. An invitation was sent both to Aragonès, who already had the agenda set and will not alter it, and the President of the Parliament, Laura Borràs, who instead of the act of 12h in the Liceu, assured that at that time she will be in the Ciutat de la Justicia to accompany a new "reprisal" by the Spanish justice system. There will be no member of the Government, but this Sunday from Waterloo the former President Carles Puigdemont, accompanied by the Vice President of the Government, Jordi Puigneró, challenged Sánchez to explain the pardons to the Parliament.

The prisoners did not like the staging of Sánchez either, because they consider that he is "speculating" with his freedom, Oriol Junqueras lamented this Sunday. The Republican President, who a couple of years ago rejected outright pardons, now considers that they are a "triumph" for independence because they demonstrate "the weaknesses of the apparatus of the State". He is not the only one who argues that the Spanish government is granting them with a wink to the European Court of Justice. Puigneró, on the other hand, denies that they are any "triumph".

The format of the pardons

The Spanish government has not wanted to share too many details of the act, beyond that it will be a defense of the reasons for the pardon and a new presentation of the so-called agenda of Sanchez for the reunion with Catalonia. For practical purposes, it will serve to put on the table the basically political arguments with which the Spanish government will wield the pardon to prevent the third chamber of the Supreme Court from revoking it. This is where the conflict will foreseeably continue after Vox and PP have pledged to appeal the measure - although it is unclear whether they can do so, since it is a process reserved for those harmed by the case.

The intention of the Council of Ministers is to approve partial pardons - where what is currently left of the prison sentence is removed but the disqualification is maintained - and reversible, that is, that in case of re-offending, re-entry into prison is ordered. The latter will not be an exception for the leaders of the Catalan independence bid: all the latest pardons drawn up by the Minister of Justice, Juan Carlos Campo, include this. There is doubt surrounding how many years the reversibility will be maintained. The other side of the reports, which will be all individual, will be based on defending the "public utility" of the pardons to "promote coexistence in Catalonia", as published yesterday El País.

Sánchez's subsequent agenda

Before Sánchez explains the pardons in Barcelona, this Sunday the Minister of Transport, José Luis Ábalos, defended them again from Seville. "We have to do it for Spain, for Catalonia", he said. Now, however, he also warned: "If they do it again, the State has shown strength to not allow it".

El País also noted that ERC has been involved in the pardon strategy for months. This week, however, it is the Spanish government that has designed all the details. It will begin with the act in the Liceu, it will continue with the decision of the Council of Ministers. This is due on Wednesday during a session in Congress, where Sánchez will defend the measure again, and on Thursday the Spanish executive will approve that masks are no longer mandatory in the street. A measure that aims to insufflate optimism and eclipse, in part, the departure of political prisoners. Then Sanchez will be in Brussels because he is meeting with the European Council, but on Wednesday next week he will defend the pardons in Congress. He is yet to schedule the meeting with Aragonès and a dialogue table, which is not expected until September.