PSOE gets in a mess over historical memory
BarcelonaThe PSOE's desire to fulfil one of its electoral promises and pass a law of historical memory, and at the same time not to offend susceptibilities, has backfired. First, it let Unidas Podemos announce on Wednesday with great fanfare that the two parties had agreed an amendment that would allow to circumvent the 1977 amnesty law and try those responsible for the crimes of the dictatorship. The PSOE, through its spokesman in the Spanish Parliament, Héctor Gómez, was quick to water it down and warned that it was not a "panacea". But then this Thursday the promoter of the law, the Minister of the Presidency, Felix Bolaños, admitted that the amendment, which states that the amnesty law "shall be interpreted and applied in accordance with international humanitarian law, according to which war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and torture do not prescribe and cannot be the object of amnesties", does not involve any real change in the "legal system". Therefore, what made great headlines on Wednesday morning, is left practically void 24 hours later, an amendment that was more symbolic than operative.
Bolaños thus proved ERC right. On Wednesday, the party warned that the amendment did not open any doors that were not already open. And the fact is that the State adhered to the Geneva Convention and assumed international law, which considers that crimes against humanity are not subject to the statute of limitations. Therefore, the door to prosecute these crimes has been open for 44 years. Even so, the reality is that the Supreme Court has on many occasions used the 1977 amnesty law as a legal basis for not prosecuting the dictatorship's crimes. ERC maintains that the only effective way to prosecute those crimes (despite the fact that in practice there are very few survivors from that period) is to modify the amnesty law, which the PSOE flatly refuses to do.
At this point, therefore, the law is far from having the necessary support to be approved. Without ERC, the government would have to look to Ciudadanos and combine its vote with that of Unidas Podemos, which is highly unlikely. The PSOE, then, must accept that if it wants to move forward alongside the same parties that voted it in, it will have to be more ambitious and take a decisive step to declare the Franco regime "illegal" and accept the consequences. And if not, they will have to put it on hold.
The socialists' red line so far has been to avoid any kind of financial responsibility for the State, that is, to limit compensation to the symbolic aspect but to prevent the victims or their descendants from being able to claim compensation. We must be aware that a law such as the one advocated by ERC would place the PSOE outside the consensus of the Transition and would widen the rift with the right, but it is also true that it is very frustrating that 45 years after the death of the dictator no decisive step can be taken to compensate the victims of Francoism, who were the forgotten victims of the Transition, and who, moreover, now see how the supporters of the dictator are once again trying to become the protagonists of Spanish politics.
