EU court endorses Spanish PM's contentious Catalan amnesty
The EU's top court has backed a Spanish law giving amnesty to Catalan separatists over the independence referendum. The deal let Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez
The EU's top court has backed a Spanish law giving amnesty to Catalan separatists over the independence referendum. The deal let Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez stay in office in 2023 and prompted major opposition protests. The disputed Spanish law granting an amnesty to those involved in Catalonia's 2017 separatist referendum does not violate European Union rules, the EU's top court ruled on Thursday. The decision is a boost both for pardoned Catalan politicians and for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, for whom the deal was necessary in order to retain power after 2023's elections. What did the Court of Justice of the European Union rule? The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) agreed with the Spanish government's longstanding position that the amnesty was reconcilable with EU laws on the scope and limits of member state's powers when granting political amnesty. "The court finds that the Spanish amnesty law concerns a field which falls within the competence of Member States," CJEU judge Koen Lenaerts said, in other words saying it was not a decision where Spain had to defer to EU authorities in Brussels. Spain's Constitutional Court had also supported the law. "[The court] does not oppose a law which, in order to reduce institutional and political tensions and facilitate a process of reconciliation, provides for the extinction of criminal liability," one of the CJEU's judges said when delivering the verdict.
The amensty prompted widespread protests in Spain, both because of the concessions to Catalan and because it kept the center-right Popular Party out of power [FILE: October 20, 2024] Image: Richard Zubelzu/picture alliance Why was the amnesty contentious? The move, which cleared Spain's parliament in 2024, faced major opposition protests after the elections of 2023. That's largely because the deal enabled Sanchez to remain in power in a minority government with support from parties including Catalan and Basque nationalist groups. The conservative People's Party (PP), which is the largest single party in Spain's parliament but only leads the opposition, had argued that it was not reasonable to pardon what authorities in Madrid had deemed a terrorist attempt at sedition, albeit by peaceful political means. Spanish Justice Minister Felix Bolanos said that now there could be "no doubt" that the amnesty was in line with EU law. In a televised statement on Thursday, he said that despite the amnesty being "strongly" rejected by parts of the population at the time, "it has been worth it." Having seen the amnesty's effects helping to normalize the political situation in Catalonia, Bolanos said, "nobody, not even its most staunch critics, would want to give up its benefits." The law passed Spain's parliament in 2024, soon after the 2023 elections [FILE: March 14, 2024] Image: Manu Fernandez/AP Photo/picture alliance What happened in Catalonia's push for independence in 2017?
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