The Constitutional Court (TC) will hold the first debate on amnesty for the leaders of the Procés on September 22, as ARA has learned. It will be within the framework of the amparo appeal filed by the former minister and now general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, whose rapporteur is magistrate José María Macías. With this first discussion, the Constitutional Court will begin deliberations that both the Spanish government and the independence movement hope will end with resolutions favorable to the amnesty for former president Carles Puigdemont; ERC leader Oriol Junqueras, and the rest of the convicted or processed former ministers. In fact, this is the step that was already foreseen for the autumn, after the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concluded that the expenses related to the 1-O "do not affect the financial interests of the European Union. This week there was also a plenary session of the Constitutional Court, but they considered that they did not have enough time to address the issue before the holidays.

Don't think of an elephant... Did you think of one? Probably, yes. Now you must be wondering why this article starts like this, asking about an elephant, but the answer is simple: to show how the A-B-C of any electoral campaign operates and that it is key to winning elections. As George Lakoff theorized in his reference book Don't Think of an Elephant! (2004, Chelsea Green Publishing), whoever sets the framework for the debate and manages to talk about what they want and in the language they choose, has a high chance of taking victory at the polls. And this is the underlying battle that the PP and the PSOE have been fighting for months in Madrid, as whoever manages to impose the terms of public discussion is the one who comes out with an advantage for the next general elections. The confrontation is between two visions: those who brandish the ghost of corruption (the PP) against those who threaten with the ghost of neo-fascism (the PSOE).

The day after the European justice's endorsement of the amnesty everyone builds their own narrative. While the independence movement celebrates the ECJ's decision, but warns that this does not end the repression, both the Catalan and Spanish governments see their "reconciliation" agenda validated and claim the end of the "political crisis" between Catalonia and the State. Moreover, the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, has assured that if he "were Carles Puigdemont" he would return to Spain, "without a doubt". "We must face up to it once and for all," he said in an interview with RNE, as reported by Efe. This attitude has not pleased Junts at all, as the arrest warrant remains in effect and the former president would be arrested. "What misery and frivolity," replied the party's general secretary, Jordi Turull. After this, party sources consulted by ARA reaffirm their break with the Spanish government, also after the ECJ's ruling in favor of amnesty.

The judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the amnesty was a very relevant step to achieve legal backing from Europe for the rule approved in the Congress of Deputies, as it is the first time it has ruled on the measure to end the criminal proceedings of the Procés. It has done so by endorsing the spirit of the legislator: the normalization of the political situation in Catalonia in favor of "reconciliation". However, what are the practical effects of this resolution? When will former president Carles Puigdemont be able to return? When will Oriol Junqueras and the former political prisoners stop being disqualified?

Relevant decision by the Provincial Court of Madrid regarding the case affecting Begoña Gómez. For weeks, the Spanish government had been awaiting its pronouncement to rein in the investigating judge, Juan Carlos Peinado, and finally, the decision arrived this Thursday. What has the chamber decided? The five magistrates order the withdrawal of precautionary measures and the return of her passport – they consider there is no "real" risk of flight because she has family ties and it was an "unfortunate" decision – but they endorse that a popular jury judge her.

The Libertas Forum is an initiative of the European People's Party that aims to build bridges of dialogue between Europe and Latin America and is made up of right-wing and center-right organizations, with a total of 60 parties from more than 40 different countries. And it was within the framework of the summit held in Madrid this Wednesday, before European and also Latin American leaders, that Alberto Nuñez Feijóo defined Pedro Sánchez as an "authoritarian president". In an inaugural speech in which he claimed "Western values" and the alliance with the United States against other states like China, Feijóo accused Sánchez, without explicitly naming him, of wanting to "control" key elements of the State and "threaten" democracy.

The invitation from the French embassy to the national celebration of July 14 in Madrid already included watching the World Cup semi-final in the program. What they didn't know a month ago when they sent it was that the match would be between France and Spain. And even less so that it would be the same week that a former Spanish government president – Mariano Rajoy i Brey – would make a racist comment about the French players. This has undoubtedly been one of the most discussed topics this Tuesday at the small palace on Calle Serrano 124 in Madrid, where the ambassador, Kareen Rispal, resides, and where the commemoration of the storming of the Bastille has been celebrated with hundreds of guests in the Spanish capital.

"This July 14th will be remembered as the day our care system was refounded". The Minister of Social Rights, Pablo Bustinduy, thus highlighted a day on which Congress approved by majority two transcendental issues for the care system: a decree-law is validated to oblige the State to contribute, for the first time, 50% of the funding for services provided for in the dependency law; and also that telecare becomes a universal service for all dependent people (currently subject to age criteria or co-payment). In fact, Bustinduy has compared the new legislation with the pension system established in the 20th century or with access to universal education and healthcare. The new scenario should benefit the 300,000 dependent people and the 130,000 on the waiting list in Catalonia, the "community with the longest waiting list, which has already approved a shock plan to speed up the procedures for collecting aid while they wait for a residential spot. Every day, thirty Catalans die without having received any help.

The Spanish government's first reaction has not had to wait long for the conviction of Pedro Sánchez's brother to 9 years of disqualification. The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, who is one of the government members who has shown himself to be most belligerent against the judiciary, has assured that the sentence is an attempt to oust the PSOE from the Spanish government. "This era will be studied in history books as the one in which the seams of our institutions were strained with the sole purpose of overthrowing a government due to the inability to do so through the ballot box," he stated.

A decade ago, when a President of the Generalitat landed in Madrid, it was to defend the possibility of Catalonia voting in a referendum on independence. Artur Mas did it first; then Carles Puigdemont, Quim Torra and, finally, Pere Aragonès. Ten years later, however, with new majorities in Parliament, the Catalan government presents itself as the best guarantee of "institutional cooperation" and "loyalty" to the Spanish government's project. The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, starred this Monday in a press breakfast in the Spanish capital, organized by Efe and RTVE, in which he highlighted the moment that Catalonia without the Procés is experiencing: the Generalitat has budgets; it "leads" the new financing proposal where all autonomous communities gain resources, and it is synonymous with "stability". In addition, he has called for "speed" in applying the amnesty law, hitting a nerve with those like the PP and Vox who accuse the PSOE of reviving independence: "It is the first time in forty years that there has been no nationalist and independence majority. It has not revitalized, on the contrary [...]. I know what I'm talking about".

Next Thursday, July 16, the Court of Justice of the European Union will rule on the amnesty. This will be following a question from the Court of Auditors regarding the accounting responsibility of October 1st, in which this state body asks the European judicial authorities if ending the case goes against the financial interests of the EU. But the ruling will have effects beyond that: knowing what Europe thinks is the condition that the Constitutional Court had set to resolve the appeals for protection affecting Carles Puigdemont and Oriol Junqueras. So, is their judicial journey over? Not yet: see the analysis.

July 16th has been circled in red on the calendar for weeks as a key date for the amnesty of the leaders of 1-O. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has endorsed the law, accepting that it fits within European legislation and ruling out that affect the financial interests of the EU. However, the effects of this ruling will go further. The pronouncement is a prerequisite that the Constitutional Court has self-imposed to resolve the appeals for protection filed by Carles Puigdemont, Oriol Junqueras, and the rest of the former councilors, waiting for Europe to provide an argumentative cushion to justify releasing them from criminal responsibility and also applying the law to them. But the path to get here will not be easy: even though a favorable pronouncement from the Constitutional Court is expected in the fall – last June endorsed the fit of the norm within the Magna Carta–, the ball will fall again on the roof of the Supreme Court, which will have the final say. For the moment, sources from the court consulted by ARA explain that, for now, they will not move because they have not made any request to the CJEU.In the Supreme Court, they are cryptic about the strategy they will follow, although sources emphasize that if there are very clear rulings from Europe and the Constitutional Court, they will follow them and there will be extinction of criminal liability. For the moment, they consider that there are none. There is an immediate precedent in which the Supreme Court has not acted with speed. Two years ago, the high court raised a question of unconstitutionality to the TC regarding the case of a demonstrator from Girona investigated for public disorder following the protests of October 2019. On October 8, 2025, that is, nine months ago, the Constitutional Court dismissed the appeal and gave the green light to the Supreme Court to put an end to the criminal case. Despite this, at present, there has still been no movement. Nor has the TC made any move to enforce its ruling, since, according to consulted sources, the young man's defense has not filed any execution incident. Official sources from the Supreme Court assure they have no information on the case.The precedent of the Canary Islands 

Beyond the case of Catalonia, there is an example that highlights the odyssey that fulfilling a sentence from the Constitutional Court can become. We must travel to La Laguna, a municipality on the island of Tenerife. In April 2020, a court in Santa Cruz de Tenerife annulled the article of the statutes of the Pontificia, Real y Venerable Esclavitud del Santísimo Cristo de la Laguna association, which prevented women from becoming members, alleging that it violated the right to equality. The woman who prompted this was Teresa Laborda.In January 2022, however, the Supreme Court overturned the sentence and upheld the exclusion of women from the association, which is defined as a "religious association of knights." Laborda took the case to the Constitutional Court, which ruled in her favor in November 2024. However, a year and a half has passed and there have been no changes, despite the court having blocked the multiple attempts by the association and the bishopric of Tenerife to prevent its application. Given the inaction, Laborda has filed two execution incidents with the TC, but both have been dismissed as premature.Rajoy's reform

The question is what powers the Constitutional Court has to enforce its rulings. What does the law say? The government of Mariano Rajoy, in view of the Process, carried out a reform in 2015 to give the TC execution capacity. During 2016 and 2017, Moncloa filed execution incidents before the TC because the Parliament's board admitted initiatives that unfolded the independence process – which was interpreted as a breach of a previous ruling – and the Constitutional Court passed the facts to the Prosecutor's Office, which filed numerous lawsuits for disobedience up to the macro-case of the Process for sedition.The law goes further and also gives powers to the TC to act ex officio: it can impose coercive fines of 3,000 to 30,000 euros – it was applied against the electoral board of 1-O – or suspend authorities that do not comply with resolutions. Therefore, the Constitutional Court has legal tools, but legal sources aware of the matter assure that the TC magistrates are usually not very belligerent with other judges. Will Cándido Conde-Pumpido openly confront the Supreme Court to enforce the amnesty?Avoid collision

Until now, the TC has wanted to avoid a direct clash with the Supreme Court. The proof is that it has refused to apply precautionary measures such as lifting the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, which would have allowed the former president to return to Catalonia while the proceedings on the appeal for protection and the case in the Supreme Court remain open. Doing so would have implied an unprecedented battle between the Supreme Court and the TC, which Conde-Pumpido has avoided. Of course, the president of the Constitutional Court has publicly warned that "all public authorities are obliged to comply" with what the TC resolves.Politically, this scenario, according to various sources consulted, was addressed at the negotiating table between the PSOE and Junts before the breakdown, but it went nowhere. And here also lies the distancing between Puigdemont and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, as sources familiar with the matter point out that the former Spanish president always conveyed high optimism about the fulfillment of the PSOE-Junts agreements, which later did not correspond to reality.The other possibility: go to Europe

The other card the Supreme Court can play is to go to the ECJ after the Constitutional Court's ruling. An unprecedented move that until now only one court has made: the Seville Court in the ERO case. After being reviewed by the TC, it raised a preliminary ruling to Luxembourg because it considered that the annulment of the sentences of Manuel Chaves and José Antonio Griñán implied a "systemic risk of impunity".The Supreme Court could repeat a similar move in the case of the independence leaders. With what argument? What the Luxembourg court will do next week is rule whether October 1st affected the EU's financial interests, but the Supreme Court has another argument on which Europe will not have ruled yet: it maintains that there is embezzlement because the leaders of the 'Procés' saved themselves the cost of the referendum from their own pockets. "An interpretation that considered the crime of embezzlement to be amnestiable would force us to raise the preliminary ruling in the future," the Supreme Court warned almost two years ago in one of its rulings.

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The Ministry of Finance, led by Arcadi España, sent a first draft of the new funding proposal in writing to all autonomous communities yesterday, which ARA accessed, and which maintains what the Spanish government agreed with the Generalitat and Esquerra, who have negotiated until the last hour with the minister's team. This is the first time the Spanish government has detailed the pillars of the proposal, as until now it had only been introduced verbally in the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy in January. It is, therefore, a step forward to truly embark on the process of approving the model.

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The battle between PP and PSOE transcends internal affairs and already has consequences in relations with third countries. More than three years after the government of Pedro Sánchez signed a treaty of friendship with France, in January 2023 in Barcelona, it has not yet come into force. One of the reasons for this blockage is the opposition of the Popular Party, which considers one of the points of the document to be unconstitutional. The PP justifies its opposition because they assure that the Spanish executive has made a "legislative mess". They frame the criticism within their generalized denunciation of Sánchez's methods, whom they accuse of constantly trampling on the rule of law, also with this bilateral agreement with France. The Spanish government, on the contrary, attributes to the PP a desire to "sabotage the interests of Spaniards" for partisan reasons.

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July will be a thrilling month for the Ministry of Finance. Not only because it has put underway the machinery to present the 2027 budgets –with the vote on the stability path in Congress and the presentation of the spending ceiling–, but because it will be key to the funding model. After almost two years of negotiation with Esquerra and the Generalitat, this week the ministry plans to send the draft of the new funding system law in writing and July 29th minister Arcadi Spain will make it official in a new meeting of the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy. And it will be at this meeting that all common-regime autonomies (the Basque Country and Navarre are excluded) will vote against the model, with the exception of Catalonia.

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Probably, no country wishes for a diplomatic conflict with the United States. Even if it's Trump's United States, they remain the world's leading power, still situated within the traditional Western bloc. However, this is not the case for Pedro Sánchez. Moncloa welcomes a new clash with Donald Trump, at a time of maximum tension due to the alleged corruption cases surrounding the PSOE and the Spanish government, and in a week when the focus of the NATO summit in Ankara, at a state level, was also on the bouquet of flowers that could not be delivered to Begoña Gómez due to the justice's veto on her leaving Spain. That is to say, even though Spain has responded with restraint, it suits Sánchez that for one day the framework of debate returns to international relations.

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After announcing the deficit targets for the autonomous communities to the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy, this Tuesday the Council of Ministers ratified them and also approved the spending ceiling for all public administrations. The Minister of Finance, Arcadi España, announced that it will be the "largest in history": up to 226,032 million, 6.6% more than the previous spending ceiling, which was 212,026 million euros.

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While the Spanish legislature is alive, the Spanish government maintains steps to try to bring the new regional financing model to light. What timeline is it working with? Once the Andalusian elections are overcome – in which the former vice-president and former Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, ran as a candidate – the state executive has reactivated the machinery and has set a new meeting of the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF) for Wednesday, July 29, which should serve to put on the table the new financing system that the socialists agreed with ERC (and presented in January). Previously, on July 14, the Spanish government will hold a preparatory technical meeting with all the autonomous communities and this week it will distribute the specific proposal to all communities. The next step will be for the Council of Ministers to approve the proposal and then send it to Congress, probably in September. And there, it still has to win the necessary support for this new model to see the light.

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La Moncloa is determined to present the budgets for 2027 despite not having support in the Congress of Deputies. And, for this reason, it has already begun to take the necessary steps to bring the accounts to the Spanish chamber this autumn. The Minister of Finance, Arcadi España, met yesterday with all the Finance Ministers of the autonomous communities and conveyed to them the spending limits foreseen by the State government for regional and municipal governments throughout next year. They will have the possibility to spend up to 4% more, and this new spending rule will apply to all administrations, although it maintains the deficit margin for autonomous administrations at 0.1% of Spanish gross domestic product (GDP, the indicator that measures the size of an economy).

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Alberto Núñez Feijóo had a hope with Juanma Moreno Bonilla. He was the regional baron with the most possibilities, according to the polls, of maintaining the absolute majority and continuing to govern without the concurrence of Vox. But the result of the elections dispelled any doubt that the destiny of the PP requires having to coexist with the far-right, even its most moderate leader, as has been demonstrated with this Thursday's pact which cedes important spaces of power to Santiago Abascal's party in Andalusia. With Juanma Moreno's new coalition government with the far-right, the PP-Vox coalition becomes the regional executive model that governs the most people in the State, specifically 27.3%, ahead of popular governments on their own, which rule over 20.8% of citizens, and PP governments with far-right support, which affect 16.8%.

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