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POLITICS

At Barcelona rally, Spanish right lambasts amnesty plan

Spain's right-wing leaders lambasted plans to grant Catalan separatists an amnesty in exchange for supporting a new left-wing government at a Barcelona rally Sunday that drew tens of thousands.

Protesters hold Spain's flags and 'No to amnesty' signs during a right-wing protest against plans to grant Catalan separatists an amnesty in order to form Spain's next government, in Barcelona on October 8, 2023.
Protesters hold Spain's flags and 'No to amnesty' signs during a right-wing protest against plans to grant Catalan separatists an amnesty in order to form Spain's next government, in Barcelona on October 8, 2023. (Photo by Pau BARRENA / AFP)

King Felipe VI charged Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez this week with forming a new government, for which he needs crucial support from a hardline Catalan separatist party.

In exchange, the party has demanded an amnesty for those facing legal action over Catalonia’s failed 2017 independence bid which triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

The proposal has enraged the right which says amnesty cannot be used as a bargaining chip for Sanchez to remain in power.

Huge crowds waving Spanish and Catalan flags flooded Barcelona city centre for the rally called by Societat Civil Catalana (SCC) which is opposed to the northeastern region breaking away from Spain.

Spain has been mired in political uncertainty since an inconclusive July election that was won by the right-wing Popular Party but without enough support to form a government, with leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo failing a key September vote to become premier.

Now it’s Sanchez’s turn and his Socialists and their hard-left Sumar allies support the idea of granting the amnesty demanded by JxCat, whose leader Carles Puigdemont led the 2017 secession bid then fled Spain to avoid prosecution and would benefit from the move.

The idea is anathema to the right for whom Puigdemont is public enemy number one and also a red line for some within Sanchez’s Socialist party.

“No amnesty!” and “Send Puigdemont to prison!” shouted the demonstrators, who numbered more than 50,000, Barcelona police said. Organisers gave a figure of 300,000.

“This is not an amnesty that seeks reconciliation, it is exclusively aimed at getting into the prime minister’s office,” said Feijoo, whose bid to become prime minister with the support of the far-right Vox left him isolated within the parliament.

“It’s unacceptable that politicians should break the law, some to reach the prime minister’s office… others to settle their debt with the law,” he said, as Vox leader Santiago Abascal, who was also there, blasted it as “an assault on the Constitution”.

Sumar to present amnesty document

Sanchez has shown himself to be a tenacious political survivor with a knack for striking deals with rival parties and is confident he will be returned to power, pledging “generosity” in talks with the separatists while admitting they would be “complicated”.

He began formal talks with Sumar about renewing his mandate this week, with the hard left party’s leader Yolanda Diaz, who is also acting labour minister, due to lay out a legal document on the amnesty proposal in Barcelona on Tuesday.

“We are aware of Sumar’s proposal about the amnesty as well as those of other parties which is good because it’s a way of trying to resolve the judicial implications” of the 2017 independence bid, he said during an EU summit in Granada on Friday.

The document has already been sent to JxCat, which thanked Sumar for its “willingness to reach an agreement” and pledged to look at it in detail. The party’s more moderate separatist rival ERC — on whom Sanchez is also counting for support — also received a copy.

Sanchez, who has sought to calm separatist tensions since coming to office five years ago, in 2021 pardoned Catalan separatist leaders who were serving long prison terms over the secession bid.

Sanchez needs to secure support from at least 176 lawmakers within the 350-seat parliament to win a key vote that must take place before November 27.

If he fails, Spain will automatically be forced to hold new elections, most likely in mid-January.

At Sunday’s rally, 53-year-old lecturer Araceli Rodriguez told AFP she was “absolutely against” an amnesty because it would be akin to whitewashing the 2017 crisis.

“What you cannot do is to sell out Spanish democracy on the strength of only seven votes,” said Rodriguez, referring to the votes of JxCat’s seven lawmakers.

“Approving an amnesty is selling out Spanish democracy for the partisan interests of a party that didn’t even win the election.”

Member comments

  1. I find the headline of this piece misleading. It is not specifically the “Spanish right” that is opposed to the amnesty – many from the left are against it too. It’s also worth pointing out that Puigdemont is himself from the right.

    The issue of Catalan separatism cannot therefore be defined as a simple battle between left and right.

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POLITICS

The plan for Catalonia to handle its own finances separately from Spain

Catalan separatists are pushing for 'financiación singular' to gain greater fiscal autonomy from the Spanish state, but the proposals are tied up with politics at the national level.

The plan for Catalonia to handle its own finances separately from Spain

The recent regional elections in Catalonia in May were hailed by political pundits as the end of the procés and turning the page on the Catalan question. The evidence for this was that separatist parties lost their majority in the regional legislature for the first time in over a decade and that the Socialists (PSOE) won the most votes overall.

However, since then things have been far from simple. The PSOE candidate, Salvador Illa, is yet to secure an investiture vote and the political horse trading is ongoing with ramifications for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s fragile majority at the national level.

The controversial amnesty law pushed by Sánchez’s government then got clogged up in the courts, despite being approved in the Congress, and Catalan separatist parties managed to cling onto the role of speaker in the regional parliament. Catalan lawmakers elected Josep Rull, a member of the hardline separatist Junts per Catalunya, which is led by exiled former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont.

READ ALSO: Separatists retain speaker in new Catalan parliament

The important context to understand here is that the Sánchez government is dependent on separatist parties, including Junts and the more moderate Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC). After inconclusive general election results last summer, Sánchez essentially made a deal with the Catalans in exchange for their votes to maintain his position in La Moncloa.

Catalan finances and national politics

Now separatist parties, particularly ERC, are leveraging this support in order to gain concessions from the national government. The main way they’re doing this is through a demand for financiación singular — ‘singular financing’. That is to say, how Catalonia raises and uses taxes, and whether or not it should be allowed greater fiscal autonomy closer to something like the Basque model.

ERC secretary general Marta Rovira has said in the Spanish press that greater fiscal autonomy “is the minimum that can be demanded,” and alluded to the conditionality of their support for Sánchez: “The Socialists must know that if Pedro Sánchez is not able to move on the singular financing… it will be very difficult for ERC to support him. Salvador Illa must bear this in mind.”

la financiación ‘singular’

But what is singular financing? Former president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, described the plan as “full fiscal sovereignty” in the election campaign, and essentially what the ERC is proposing is a bespoke fiscal arrangement for Catalonia that allows the Generalitat to collect (and keep) more of its taxes.

This would be a step, albeit financial rather than constitutional, towards greater regional autonomy for Catalonia and likely viewed as a political victory for separatists.

For critics of Sánchez, it would be more evidence of his capitulation to Catalans.

Singular finance is an idea inspired by the so-called “Basque quota”. This is basically a fiscal arrangement that allows the Basque government control of most of its taxes but means it must also contribute a set ‘quota’ to the Spanish government.

READ ALSO: Spain’s contested Catalan amnesty bill comes into force

In Catalonia, the long-term aim would be something similar: for the Generalitat to collect all (or more than it currently does, at least) of the taxes paid in Catalonia and then transfer to the Spanish state an agreed portion of that.

In terms of cash, this would mean that the Generalitat would collect billions more in tax (some estimates put it as high as €52 billion overall) and more than double the €25.6 billion it received in 2021 under the current model.

Proponents of the singular finance model also suggest that giving the Generalitat greater fiscal autonomy would do something to redress the so-called ‘Catalan deficit’, the difference between what the Catalan economy contributes to the Spanish state coffers and what it receives in return investment. Generalitat estimates for 2021 put this figure at over €20 billion in 2021.

Therefore, the demand is not only political but economic. The ERC claims that changing the fiscal model would do something to resolve what it calls the “chronic underfunding” of the region.

Negotiations for a singular financing model, which will be tied up in the investiture negotiations for Illa, which are themselves tied up in the fragile arrangement at the national level, will likely continue for many weeks.

If no candidate has won an investiture vote in the regional parliament by August 25th, further elections will be called.

READ ALSO: Which Catalans want independence from Spain?

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