The Moncloa and Salvador Illa demand that the Supreme Court apply the amnesty to Puigdemont.

BarcelonaThe day that officially The Constitutional Court (TC) has endorsed the amnesty lawBoth the Moncloa Palace and Salvador Illa have demanded that the Supreme Court apply the sentence to former President Carles Puigdemont. Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, was clear in an appearance before the Congress of Deputies. "The amnesty will not be complete until it is applied to all the protagonists of the Process, including its leaders. That was the will of the legislative branch," he said, referring to the former head of the executive, exiled in Brussels since 2017.

Along the same lines, "people who have not yet been able to benefit, as is the case of the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont. In this sense, he has demanded that the Supreme Court apply the law. "I ask the relevant judicial authorities, especially the Supreme Court, with respect but clearly, to apply the law to them diligently," he said in an institutional statement from the Palace of the Generalitat in Catalan, Spanish, and English: "It makes no sense to obstruct the application of the law."

Illa has assured that this first year of application of the amnesty has demonstrated the "effectiveness" of the law, because it has benefited around 300 people, he stated. The president once again argued that the law should serve to lead Catalonia and the state toward "full normalization" and insisted that everyone can defend their political project, but within "the framework of coexistence we have established for ourselves." "Our democracy is solid, full, and with institutional guarantees for expressing political ideas and projects." "I invite all Catalans and Spaniards to look forward," he concluded.

Along the same lines, as he did on Wednesday, the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, welcomed the Constitutional Court's decision and, in a media address from Brussels, said that it is "very good news" for Spain, because it underpins "coexistence." "We are closing a political crisis that should never have left politics," he said, criticizing Mariano Rajoy's administration. In his opinion, the decision demonstrates that "Spain is a social and democratic state governed by the rule of law" and that the law approved by Congress was constitutional. He also emphasized that the ruling highlights "the value of politics" as "a lever for transformation and providing solutions to difficult conflicts" such as the Proceso.

The pro-independence forces also demand that it be applied to everyone.

The independence movement also welcomed the decision, but without hiding its reservations about the delay in its implementation. Junts reaffirmed its role with the amnesty and recalled that, before its pact with Sánchez, neither the PSOE nor the PP, nor Prime Minister Salvador Illa, supported this measure. In the opinion of Junts Secretary General Jordi Turull, this represents a "total amendment" to the state's "repression" and, unlike the Spanish government, he believes the political conflict is not over. "The conflict lies in how to implement the mandate of 1-O," Turull said, despite the fact that the independence movement has lost its absolute majority in the Parliament.

According to Turull, the Constitutional Court should now force the Supreme Court to "apply the amnesty with coercive measures" both to Puigdemont—he declined to comment on his return—and to the rest of the leaders of the Process, including himself. Thus, he said that the legal reform implemented by the People's Party (PP) in 2015, which granted the court enforcement powers, could be used for this purpose. However, in the case of this Thursday's ruling, the Constitutional Court makes no reference to whether the embezzlement is eligible for amnesty, which is the pretext for the Supreme Court's refusal to apply the amnesty to the top leaders of the Process. What the Constitutional Court intends to do is wait to rule on Puigdemont and the rest of the former members of the 2017 Catalan government in their respective appeals for constitutional protection. If the amnesty is granted, Turull did not rule out running for office in the Catalan elections.

From the ERC party, former Interior Minister Joan Ignasi Elena called the ruling a "success for democracy" and the independence movement, but urged everyone to "comply with and apply the law to everyone." In any case, he warned that the ruling does not nullify the "will of the Catalan people" to position themselves on their political future "through the ballot box." The president of the Republicans, Oriol Junqueras, said the ruling is "a step forward," but noted that in his case and in others, it will not bring about any change, since "the Supreme Court has made clear its will to prevent it."

For CUP MP Laia Estrada, the approval of the law "is no surprise" because "the majority of the current composition of the Constitutional Court is sympathetic to the PSOE" and the PSOE is "fully aware" of the role the law plays in "liquidating political conflict without resolving it democratically." Despite expressing her "joy" that some people may have benefited from repression, Estrada insisted that the law "must be accompanied by recognition of the right to self-determination."

From Òmnium, Xavier Antich stressed that the ruling demonstrates that the law is "legal, constitutional, compatible with the principles of the rule of law, and legitimate," but warned that it does not place Catalonia "in any scenario of reconciliation or normalization." Comuns MEP Jaume Asens also hailed the Constitutional Court's endorsement of the amnesty law as a "victory for law, reason, and dialogue" and, conversely, as a "defeat for hatred, revenge, and the People's Party."

The People's Party (PP) calls it an "illegal and corrupt transaction."

A completely different assessment was made by the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who argued that "self-amnesty" is a "disgrace" for any democrat, "regardless of what a divided Constitutional Court says." "It is an illegal and corrupt transaction," he insisted in a press conference in Brussels. Feijóo pointed out that the former PSOE organizational secretary, Santos Cerdán, indicted for corruption, was one of the negotiators of the law. "The amnesty is illegal, immoral, a corrupt transaction in exchange for power and a blow against the separation of powers," he concluded.

The president of the PP in Catalonia, Alejandro Fernández, has been more forceful, using the social network X to directly attack the president of the TC. "Unlike others, we do not burn containers when we do not like a ruling, but we have every right in the world to say that Conde-Pumpido works for Sánchez and not to ensure the constitutionality of the norms."