The PP threatens to break off negotiations to renew the Judiciary due to the amnesty
The deputy secretary of institutional action of the PP, Esteban González Pons, threatened this Wednesday in statements to the media in Bucharest to break off the negotiations for the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), the governing body of the judges, by the amnesty law. The mandate of the Judiciary has been blocked for five years due to the PP's refusal to renew the body, since this maintains a conservative majority in the CGPJ that obeys the Cortes elected in 2011, when the PP had an absolute majority.
“It is very difficult to reach an agreement for the CGPJ with someone who at the same time is humiliating, disavowing and forcing the Supreme Court to correct itself, breaking the separation of powers,” Pons stated. The dialogue to renew this body is now being carried out with unprecedented mediation by the European Commission. “Let's see what they have agreed to, but I do tell you one thing: the Government cannot play at humiliating the judges and renewing the Council at the same time. Either you are against the judges or you are in favor of the judges, and what the Government is not going to allow is that with one hand it attacks the judges with Junts, and with the other it defends them with the PP,” he added. Pons.
González Pons' statements come after the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has stated that he is willing to make changes to the amnesty law to give “more guarantees” that the rule includes all the independentists involved, especially the leader. of Junts, Carles Puigdemont—whom the Supreme Court has decided to investigate for terrorism—.
Asked about this possible modification in the processing of the grace measure, which has not yet been finalized by the PSOE or Junts, Pons said: “This very weak Government no longer has the strength to maintain any red line against Junts or in front of anyone. I have the feeling that what we are going to learn about the amnesty law between today and tomorrow is going to be a new surrender by Pedro Sánchez to continue one more day in La Moncloa.” And he added: “The amnesty was already, in our opinion, unconstitutional, and now it will be much more so.”
Pons has also announced that the Spanish PP has given its support to the current president of the European Commission, the German Ursula von der Leyen, to once again be the candidate of the European People's Party (EPP) to preside over the executive arm of the EU after the European elections on June 9. “Let her make the defense of the Spanish rule of law one of the reasons why she is going to be elected president of the Commission again,” González Pons asked at the European PP Congress in Bucharest. And she added: “And that the Commission's policy on agriculture be corrected.”
“We have presented (in the EPP Congress) a proposed resolution on corruption and the rule of law in Spain that has not received any amendment this morning in the commission that analyzes the resolutions, so it will be approved unanimously, with which allows us to affirm at this moment that the EPP, not only the EPP but all the governments that the EPP currently presides over, which are the majority of the EU governments, support the position of the PP in Spain regarding the rule of law , against the amnesty law and, of course, against the corruption that seems institutionalized in the Government of Pedro Sánchez,” said Pons.