As it had threatened, the Catalan independence party Junts voted against the amnesty bill proposed by the PSOE, which will now return to the Justice Committee.
The bill on the final text received 171 votes in favor and 179 against (PP, Vox and Junts deputies).
The rejection and return to commission of the controversial bill returns "a disastrous image" for Pedro Sanchez's government, as it reflects the weakness of the minority Psoe-Sumar executive, dependent on the votes of Catalan nationalists, as he had warned in beginning of the day Jaume Asens, one of the negotiators of the text.
The condition posed by Carles Puidgdemont's party to vote in favor of the final text is that this could pave the way for the return of the former Catalan president himself, who fled to Belgium following the declaration of independence on 1 October 2017. And put an end to them all the judicial proceedings opened against approximately 1,500 independence activists involved in various capacities in judicial investigations.
A "full" amnesty, as the speaker Miriam Nogueras claimed in the chamber, who called for the vote in favor of the amendments presented for this purpose in exchange for the confidence voted in November by Junts for the re-election of Sanchez.
But today Congress rejected the changes: hence the vote against the final article.
What was not foreseen and blew up the pacts between socialists and Junts was the offensive carried out in recent weeks by the magistrates in charge of the investigations into the riots which in 2019 saw the independentists of Tnsunami Democratic and the defense committees of the republic as protagonists, accused in some cases of terrorism;
and the one underway at the high court of the Audiencia Nacional, which hypothesizes new alleged connections and "personal relationships" for Puigdemont and his entourage in the so-called 'Russian plot' woven by the Kremlin intelligence before the unilateral secessionist referendum in October 2017, interested in "destabilizing the European Union".
The leaders of the two investigations not only extended the investigations by six months, but confirmed that they are investigating the former Catalan president for terrorism and high treason.
Now the text of the law will return to the Justice Committee, where Junts hopes to be able to gain a month to make the requested changes.
Once dismissed from the commission, it will have to return to Congress for a new vote, and then move to the Senate, controlled by a majority of the People's Party, which has already modified the rules of the upper house to slow down the examination of the text as much as possible.
And it will make changes so that the bill must then return to the lower house for a final vote.
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