The tortuous path with a happy ending of amnesty in Europe
Brussels has attacked the law from the first moment, in large part due to pressure from the Spanish right
BrusselsThe path to amnesty in Europe has come to an end. Luxembourg has endorsed the law agreed between the PSOE, Junts, and Esquerra, which allowed Pedro Sánchez to be re-elected as Spanish president. Before this sweet ending, however, the measure went through a tortuous path with obstacles, largely accentuated by the tentacles of the Spanish right and far-right in the European Union institutions.
Even before the law was approved, the PP, Ciutadans and Vox had already moved their battle to Brussels, and they did everything they could to get any declaration, statement or gesture from the EU against the measure. The Spanish Popular Party, which is part of the most powerful and influential European political family, managed that in November 2023 was discussed in the European Parliament on the rule of law in Spain and the then-foreseeable approval of the amnesty. Previously, they had already forced similar debates over the Spanish government's pardons for independence leaders.
The Eurochamber disguised itself as Congress. The same arguments were repeated and MEPs from other member states barely participated. No binding resolution was voted on, and the debate had no follow-up, beyond the symbolic and political weight of seeing the European Parliament discuss amnesty. However, the intervention of the then European Commissioner, Didier Reynders, already sounded like a small warning to Sánchez and the separatists. "We will monitor [the amnesty] very closely," the Belgian liberal warned.
It is not usual for Brussels to issue these kinds of warnings, especially on such a sensitive issue as the amnesty law. But Reynders, who was close to Ciutadans, went even further and requested information from Moncloa about a measure that, at that time, was just being negotiated. A very exceptional move by the European Commission and which the now-defunct orange party itself claimed as its own merit.
A few days later, the Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, met with Reynders in Brussels to try to tone down the European Commissioner's attacks on the amnesty and Sánchez's government. Upon leaving the meeting, the socialist leader assured that the European Commission had not expressed "any concern" to him, but the next day the former spokesperson for the executive committee's Justice department, Christian Wigand, amended and insisted that they continued "analyzing" the measure and that it still generated "questions" for them. "The European Commission has not said that the law does not cause it concern," assured the spokesperson for the department led by Reynders.
The opposition of Brussels to the ECJ
The European Commission's opposition had just begun here. At the time of truth, in the trial in Luxembourg – which was reached because several Spanish courts raised preliminary questions to the CJEU – the tone was even more belligerent. Brussels promised to issue an assessment of the amnesty law and, although it did not publish it in the end, it did send a report to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) very harsh against the measure and which adopted the discourse of the Spanish right. The Community executive, as it later defended before the European court, qualified the measure as "self-amnesty" and assured that the only objective was for Sánchez to remain in power.
This time, however, Moncloa already opted for directly attack Brussels. When this report was drafted, Daniel Calleja, a veteran of European Commission cabinets led by Spanish commissioners from the PP, was at the head of the European Commission's Legal Services. And, for this reason, Moncloa accused the Spanish Popular Party of managing to "introduce their argumentation" through Calleja in the document that Brussels sent to the CJEU.
However, Luxembourg has definitively overturned the vast majority of the Spanish right-wing's arguments, which largely adopted the European Commission's stance. In contrast, the CJEU has unequivocally endorsed the spirit of "reconciliation" between Catalonia and Spain that considers it has amnesty.