The Catalan party voted against the law because it said there were loopholes in the amnesty.
Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sánchez The amnesty bill pushed by the Catalan separatists failed in the vote of the country’s parliament on Tuesday.
The bill was voted against by 179 and in favor by 171 in the vote of the Spanish Chamber of Deputies.
Sánchez had offered Catalan separatists amnesty to the Catalan parties in exchange for their support for his governing coalition.
However, according to the Catalan independence party JxCat, the bill did not go far enough and the party voted against it. The bill will then be returned to the parliamentary committee.
The law was intended to primarily benefit JxCat and its exiled leader Carles Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium after the failed 2017 Catalan independence bid. Puigdemont and other leading figures of the independence movement could have returned to Spain and sought political positions again under the law.
– This text was a good start, (but) there are loopholes in it that Spain’s prejudiced legal system could use to undermine the amnesty, said the MP from the JxCat party Miriam Nogueras in parliament.
– We are not terrorists, he said.
“Enemy number one”
Many Spaniards had vehemently opposed the bill in several demonstrations in Madrid. Especially for the Spanish right-wing, Puigdemont is “enemy number one”.
According to right-wing politicians, the only purpose of the amnesty law was to keep Sánchez in power.
– Sánchez wanted to bring Puigdemont to justice, but now they are rolling out the red carpet in front of him, said the right-wing opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo before the vote in parliament.
The opposition leader joked that Puigdemont had left Spain in the trunk of a car, but was now returning in Sánchez’s private plane.
In the trial against Puigdemont, an additional investigation began on Monday into suspicions that he had sought support from Russia for the Catalan state. The court has referred to “evidence of close and personal relationships” between his inner circle and Russian diplomats and spies.
According to the newspaper El Pais, the investigation may end with Puigdemont’s treason charges, from which even the amnesty law would not have offered exemption.