Unidas Podemos and other government partners acknowledge difficulties in modifying the crime of embezzlement

The possibility of lowering the penalties for the crimes of embezzlement, while changing the one of sedition for another of aggravated public disorder, is problematic among the government's own allies.

The most determined supporters of the measure —which would mean further relief for the criminal situation of the pro-independence leaders convicted of the

and those who are still pending trial are ERC and a part of Unidas Podemos.

But the same Republican group admits difficulties in carrying out this reform without opening the door for other corrupt practices to remain unscathed;

and, within the Government, a sector of Podemos is also reluctant.

Other usual allies, such as Compromís, have called for "caution and precaution."

The ERC parliamentary spokesman, Gabriel Rufián, suggested this Tuesday that a "surgical" solution should be sought and that it would only affect embezzlement when this crime is "linked to sedition", which would limit the scope of the reform exclusively to the pro-independence leaders of the

.

The general approach, put forward even by socialist members of the Executive such as the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, was that a distinction should be made when establishing penalties for embezzlement between cases in which there is profit or personal enrichment and those in which the diversion of public money is dedicated to other purposes.

In this last situation would be both the leaders of the

and those convicted of the

, which affects former leaders of the Andalusian PSOE, or by the parapolice operation

under the PP government (although in these two cases it is not clear to what extent the legal change would affect).

Political groups admit that it is not so easy to differentiate between the two cases (embezzlement with or without enrichment).

And among the promoters of the initiative it is recognized that the reform could also leave without criminal punishment behaviors such as those of the charges of the Ministry of the Interior in the time of Mariano Rajoy who used public funds with the

plot to destroy the evidence that the former treasurer kept Luis Bárcenas against the PP.

Avoid “ideological punishment”

Rufián himself has admitted these difficulties on Tuesday and has indicated that his group is carefully studying the amendment that he will present to the reform of the Penal Code to also review embezzlement.

“What we want is that the Penal Code cannot be used as an ideological punishment.

We are talking about delimiting well, defining the Penal Code so that it is not interpreted in a captious or ideological way by judges”, he pointed out at a press conference in Congress.

“We cannot change Spanish judges, [but] we can change Spanish laws.

It does not make any sense that, without there being any enrichment or a structure of corruption, Oriol Junqueras, for example, is sentenced ”, the ERC spokesman added.

When asked about the possibility that this change would benefit hundreds of others convicted of corruption, he replied that the legal change, to avoid that, has to be "surgical."

"It has to be linked to what sedition means," he said.

In Unidas Podemos, the En Comú Podem group has been one of the most insistent in requesting that the crime of diversion of public funds also be addressed in the bill to reform the Penal Code, but the group's official spokesperson, Pablo Echenique , has shown much less enthusiasm this Tuesday.

Echenique has said that the matter has "edges" and that he is concerned that the door could be opened to impunity for corrupt behavior.

UP sources insist that, despite the position publicly defended on Monday by Jaume Asens, a member of the commons and president of the UP parliamentary group, there has not yet been an internal debate on the issue.

Of course, Echenique confirmed that Asens, who has led the negotiation with the Government and ERC, did inform him of some aspects of those conversations.

The spokesman for Compromís, Joan Baldoví, has also conceded that he is not "so clear" that it can be easily differentiated "when one takes public money and puts it in tax havens or when it affects public funds", and has added that they will look the amendments with "caution and caution" because those changes in malfeasance could lead to "a lot of trouble."

PSOE, Unidas Podemos and ERC have spent weeks negotiating very discreetly about the homologation of sedition sentences with other European countries and more urgently after the failed attempts at a State pact on justice that the socialists had resumed with the PP.

The Government, which qualifies that nothing has yet been negotiated with ERC on embezzlement, insists that corruption is a "red line", but does not specify what it understands by corruption or what the specific limits of a potential review of embezzlement would be. .

“The modification that the Government has supported in the Penal Code has to do with the bill that was registered last week [by PSOE and Unidas Podemos] and has to do with the harmonization of penalties for the crime of sedition.

The position of the Government and the fulfillment of our commitment from the beginning of the legislature are limited to that.

We are not evaluating any other initiative”, said the government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, in the subsequent appearance before the Council of Ministers.

To the questions of whether the lack of personal enrichment would be a mitigation and if an à la carte legal modification is being considered for the pro-independence supporters prosecuted or convicted in the

for embezzlement, Rodríguez reiterated that the fight against corruption is "a sign of identity" of the Executive, as well as "exemplary character in public life, the exercise of permanent transparency and progress in the democratic quality of our country."

But he did not clarify what the limits of this hypothetical review of the crime of embezzlement would be.

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