Brussels will rely on the Venice Commission report to evaluate the amnesty law

The European Commission assured MEPs this Thursday that it will rely on the opinion of the Venice Commission when issuing its own analysis of the amnesty law, a document that will only be released when the law is definitively approved by the Spanish Parliament. The announcement, made by one of the senior Justice officials in Brussels, occurred during a new debate on the bill, at the initiative of the PP, in the Civil Liberties committee of the European Parliament. After one of the members of the Venice Commission recalled the main points of the conclusions of that advisory body on constitutional issues, deputies from several countries have once again regretted the politicization of European bodies by national regulations.

“The Commission will conclude its evaluation on the basis of the proposed law that is adopted to determine its conformity with European law, including the fundamental values ​​enshrined in the treaties. In this context, the opinion of the Venice Commission is a welcome contribution,” said the director for the Rule of Law, Fundamental Rights and Democracy of the European Commission, Julien Mousnier, before the MEPs.

“Their [Venice Commission] considerations on the Rule of Law requirements of amnesties will provide a useful perspective,” he added, without departing from Brussels' line of commenting as little as possible on this matter that they have been following. since the end of last year the Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders and, now, the vice president Vera Jourová. Starting this Monday, the Czech commissioner takes over the Justice files, including the Spanish amnesty law and the mediation to renew the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), after the Belgian has begun his leave of absence to prepare his campaign to lead the Council of Europe, precisely the body on which the Venice Commission depends.

During this Thursday's session, one of the last opportunities to debate in the European Parliament issues linked to the amnesty law due to the soon-to-be dissolved European Parliament, the vice-president of the Venice Commission, Marta Cartabia, recalled the ideas via videoconference main aspects of the body's opinion. This endorses the general objective of the search for reconciliation of the regulations, but asks, among other things, to limit its temporal scope more narrowly. In fact, Cartabia has indicated that what worries her most is precisely that the period of time covered by the amnesty has been extended even further after a last amendment. The final opinion, approved on March 15, also criticizes that the bill has been processed through an emergency procedure, and invites it to be approved by “qualified majorities”, that is, with a greater consensus than currently exists. The amnesty law, maintains the Venice Commission, “has deepened” the division of Spanish society.

'Europeanization' of the debate

The debate in the Civil Liberties commission of the European Parliament was requested by the PP at the beginning of March, after the Supreme Court decided to open a case for terrorism crimes against

former president

Carles Puigdemont. “With this initiative, the PP fulfills its purpose of going to the end by alerting the European Commission of the steps taken by [the president of the Government, Pedro] Sánchez and the danger of approving an amnesty that unprotects democracy in the future. coup and the rule of law, for giving impunity in exchange for power,” the conservative formation justified the debate.

What affects the most is what happens closest. So you don't miss anything, subscribe.

Subscribe

Precisely, this

Europeanization

of the Spanish dispute has been disfigured by the social democratic parliamentarian Birgit Sippel. “We are talking about a bill, nothing has been decided yet and, as far as I know, there is no precedent in this commission to discuss or examine a draft law from another country in this way,” said the German. “Unfortunately, some political groups are trying to turn this into a European political issue through internal political partisan games,” she added. Also the Dutch liberal MEP Sophie in T 'Veld, attached to Renew, has expressed her dissatisfaction with the “politicization by all parties” of this issue and has regretted that issues like this cannot be discussed in a “more serene atmosphere.” .

The meeting was short, less than an hour, and with little attendance. And it has been much less heated than other parliamentary sessions where the issue of the Spanish amnesty law has been discussed, such as the confrontation that occurred between Sánchez and the leader of the European People's Party (EPP), Manfred Weber, last December in the plenary session of Strasbourg. That day, after the German aligned himself with Alberto Núñez Feijóo and criticized the pacts of the PSOE with the independentists, the head of the socialist Government gave him a very harsh reply: "Mr. Weber, do you know what Vox is doing in Spain in its pacts with the PP? Are you sure he feels comfortable? Do you know that they are eliminating gender violence policies, censoring concerts, films and plays, while recovering the street names of people linked to the Franco dictatorship? Would that be your plan for Germany? "Return the names of the Third Reich to the streets and squares of Berlin?"

In the parliamentary commission session this Thursday, the practically unbridgeable distance between Spanish political positions has become clear. PP MEP Javier Zarzalejos has stated that this is not an amnesty law for reconciliation but rather “a law of indiscriminate impunity whose central element is, precisely, the fact that the beneficiaries of the amnesty support the government that amnesty them.” ", something that places the regulations, he added, "on the margins of the minimum and acceptable legal standards within the EU."

“The law is null and void and we must act, we are talking about harmful populism,” said Ciudadanos MEP Mayte Pagazaurtundúa, for whom the Spanish regulations “go beyond what happened in Hungary with the pardons in 2023.” , or in Poland with the attempts at pardons in 2023 and 2024, in Slovakia against the independence of the prosecutor's office or in Romania with an attempt at an amnesty law that was stopped.

The socialist Javier Moreno has maintained that the Venice Commission report makes “things clear” and endorses the Spanish bill and its spirit of reconciliation. “I invite your honors to go to Catalonia and see how the situation is now and to see in the newspaper archives the images of violence and confrontation of 2017,” he urged. Moreno has urged the PP to support the amnesty law if it wants to support "coexistence" and "strengthen the rule of law", for which he has also urged the popular party to "unblock the CGPJ." “Lend your shoulder and work with us,” he asked.

_