The European front against the amnesty is encouraged by Borrell while the Commission finalizes a statement

The European Commission is already aware of the legal text on the amnesty and its intention is to provide a legal and political assessment as soon as possible.. He is fully aware of the urgency, the importance, the pressure. When the text is officially sent, the legal services will make an in-depth assessment and an equally official position is expected, from the Commission and not from one of its commissioners in a personal capacity, as was the letter from Belgian Didier Reynders last week.. The first impression, not definitive at all and after an informal reading of the document by some of those responsible for the issue, is that the wording “is what it should be”, after the constant exchanges and warnings of the previous weeks. Brussels had set two non-negotiable conditions, and both seem to be reflected: that there be no type of mechanism to supervise sentences for the so-called lawfare and that the amnesty does not cover the misuse of community funds.. And Article 2.e, on exclusions, expressly reflects “crimes that affect the financial interests of the European Union.”

A relief for the Government that was soon blurred by the mouth of an ally. After weeks, months, of biting his tongue, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, spoke this Monday about the PSOE pact with Junts and ERC. “I know the political agreements reached with two pro-independence parties and certainly those agreements cause me some concern or quite a few concerns,” he stated, without wanting to go into a more in-depth assessment.. “This is a difficult problem about which at the time, not now, I will express myself,” added the veteran socialist leader, head of the PSOE list in the last European elections and who for years, as minister or not, fought with the independence movement. Borrell does not support, especially the revision in the pacts of the entire narrative of the process, which he suffered in the first person. But he does not want to boycott the investiture. “It is evident that I cannot mix my role with personal considerations regarding a problem of Spanish domestic policy,” he concluded his argument from Brussels, which does not help to diffuse the controversy.

The silence until now does not mean that the institutions will or can take a stand. It is a fundamental issue for an important Member State, there are hundreds of thousands of people on the streets and hundreds of emails from citizens and letters from interest groups, judicial associations or political parties arrive at their offices every day.. But if the legal ruling maintains the first impression, any political position taken will be less forceful than what the protesters who now fill the streets expect.

Amnesty, lawfare, government agreements and investiture are a national problem, and their solution is a national issue. The EU, understood here as its institutions rather than its member states, sets legal limits, some clear red lines, puts constant pressure in private and sometimes in public, but its margin of action is limited. Those who expect the Union to intervene to stop the agreement between the PSOE and Junts, the Amnesty Law and indirectly the formation of a new Government are very likely to be disappointed.. Those who assume that there will be no comment or criticism from Brussels, as if it were a homogeneous, technocratic, neutral supranational entity, are going to be equally disappointed.

Everything that is happening these days in our country is closely followed from the community capital, to begin with because the director general of Legal Affairs of the Commission, and the director general of Justice (the two highest positions in the administration of the house , only behind the general secretary) are Spanish. The Politico Playbook, the reference newsletter with which tens of thousands of officials, politicians, diplomats, lobbyists and journalists from across the continent start every day, also started this Monday with the political agreement, the amnesty, lawfare and the massive demonstrations on Sunday throughout Spain. And with a much more critical spirit than that seen in the positions of other international media, such as the Financial Times recently.

But in addition, political groups are determined to turn Brussels into a battlefield once again.. The leader of the European People's Party, Manfred Weber, has requested that in the plenary session that the European Parliament will hold next week there be a monographic debate on the issue. «When all the associations of the judiciary, the representatives of the companies and the unions raise the alarm, we should take this very seriously. We have seen this before in Poland and we hope that the European Commission will immediately clarify that, for example, the provisions on lawfare are totally unacceptable,” says Weber.

That there is a debate in plenary is not relevant in itself, it has no legal impact, it is not binding. There will only be a few dozen deputies, almost all of them Spanish, attacking each other. What matters is the pressure. In the PP and Ciudadanos they believe that only Europe, the Commission specifically, can stop this. The powers of the institutions are limited and, as the text presented today says, there are precedents in the EU, references in the European Order framework directive or rulings from the CJEU and Strasbourg on the subject.. If the law does not affect community funds and does not imply any type of powers for the legislature to review judicial sentences, its scope for action, at least at the legal level, is limited.. But not non-existent. And above all they have enormous political weight.

In Spain there is a deep complex entrenched in the depths of our broad Europeanism. The EU has always been an aspiration, a reference, but also the limits, the (superior) authority that came to amend the plan, to prevent excesses.. Hence the letter that this Monday the two parties also sent a dossier to Charles Michel, Ursula von der Leyen, Josep Borrell, several European Commissioners and to the 26 EU partner states, as well as to the leadership of their groups in Parliament. European, “on the legal and political implications of the amnesty law agreed between Pedro Sánchez and his pro-independence partners, together with a letter in which they request that all European institutions closely follow this initiative and safeguard the fundamental principles of the Union”. There will be more and trips are not ruled out to focus on those who have the capacity, at least politically, to make the digestion of this law much more difficult.

The European Commission, like in this case the Parliament or the European Council, are not neutral, purely technical entities.. Formed at their highest level by politicians, who were ministers or prime ministers. party people. That they are due to their community functions, but that they stretch their capabilities to the maximum to benefit their country, their political family and their co-religionists.. Among the European commissioners there are popular or liberal. There are representatives of governments such as Hungary or Poland, not at all sympathetic to socialism, who believe that there is a double standard. There are some, well-versed in Spain, critical of the amnesty and the independence movement.. Therefore, reactions, criticisms, other letters, interventions in the media are to be expected.

The opposition in our country knows that its only, or at least its best asset, is to apply pressure, as much as possible and at all levels.. Make noise, mobilize, make silence impossible. It is easier in the European Parliament, but not only. There are people in the streets, all the Thursday associations, the CGPJ, prosecutors, all kinds of professional associations, the employers, denouncing what is happening in Spain. And what is at stake is the rule of law, one of the most important and delicate issues at the community level, the main issue for example in the face of enlargement to new members.

It is very difficult to permanently face this clamor, and the institutions and their leaders know that Spanish public opinion is very sensitive to the word of “Brussels” and its ability to influence or pressure. That a few words are usually enough to provoke a reaction or an earthquake. And that at a political level it is also very complicated to clash head-on or ignore the messages, the warnings or the slaps simply saying that they come from “right-wing commissioners”, as the PSOE did last week with the letter sent by Commissioner Reynders, head of Justice, asking for information about the amnesty. Hence, all the conditions and incentives are in place to Europeanize the issue as much as possible, exactly as Puigdemont did when choosing the Belgian capital as a destination for his escape.