Sánchez warns about the Government's fund to pay bail: "If it is not subject to the law, we will have to appeal"

Madrid / BarcelonaThe Moncloa avoids making any comments for the moment on the Government's fund to pay the bonds of the Court of Auditors in the case for accounting responsibility against the foreign action of the Generalitat between 2011 and 2017, but warns that if it is not legal, it will appeal. The president of the Spanish executive, Pedro Sánchez, has assured that his government is studying the measure. "If it is subject to the law, nothing to object to. And if it is not, then obviously we will have to appeal", he said on Tuesday afternoon at a press conference in Tallinn.

At noon, the minister spokesperson, María Jesús Montero, stressed that the executive will wait to know the details of the agreement beyond the headlines to "consider it". However, she also warned that "the government of Spain watches over the existing legality in Catalonia" and that "all [autonomous] regulations pass through the filter of legality".

The response comes after the leader of PP, Pablo Casado, has already warned that he will appeal the fund and demand the disqualification of the members of the Government who endorse it. Casado thus fuels the judicialisation against Catalan politics at a time when the Moncloa wants to recover the dialogue through politics. The minister spokeswoman has said that the important thing is that "the investigation in the Court of Auditors ends the sooner the better" - until now the Moncloa had not asked for speed to the audit body - and has insisted that the affected people may appeal both to the Supreme (first) and then to the Constitutional Court.

The Spanish president himself last week questioned the role of the Court of Auditors, which led the agency to issue a note complaining about those who questioned its independence. But Montero insisted on Tuesday that she respects the court's decision, although she pointed out that she does not represent the judiciary and that is why the decision can be appealed in the courts as such.

Casado calls for an immediate response

"It is not up to the government to judge", he said, without commenting on whether embezzlement or accounting responsibility was actually committed - the latter is what the Court of Auditors will decide. For the PP, however, the embezzlement is clear, which creates doubts about what is really at stake in the cause. Casado has demanded Pedro Sánchez to say "immediately" if he will allow the creation of the fund because he believes that there is an "embezzlement of another embezzlement that has already been done". In addition, he considers that it is prevarication because "there are civil servants and politicians who are taking resolutions that they know are unfair".

From Catalonia, the PSC has been cautious and, before learning of the government's proposal, its spokesperson in Parliament, Alícia Romero, has asked the Catalan government that any solution must be within "legality". In the same vein, the Comuns have expressed themselves, who want to study the proposal first before making a pronouncement, but are confident that it is "legally sound". The CUP, on the other hand, has endorsed "any formula" of the government that serves to "stand by the repressed people", but has demanded of the Catalan executive that there be no "first and second class repressed people", in reference to the demonstrators against whom the Generalitat is the private prosecutor.

Ciudadanos, for its part, has warned that it does not rule out taking the Generalitat to court if it ends up paying the bail of the Court of Auditors, because, according to its spokesman in Parliament, Nacho Martin, it would be incurring in the crimes of concealment and prevarication.