The Parliament of Gasteiz, in favor of a possible amnesty

The PP brought to the Gasteiz Parliament this Thursday an illegal proposal to “rejct any kind of amnesty or generalized pardon” and to declare that “it considers the rule of law to be the expression of the popular will, as established the premise of the Constitution, and delegated all powers to follow it. Result: 66 votes against (PNV, EH Bildu, PSE and EP-IU), 6 in favor (PP and Vox) and 1 abstention from Ciudadanos, who did not like the reference to bipartisanship because of the request to encourage “two majority parties. (supposedly the State of Spain) to ask for agreements.

This reference to the proposal of the fact that “the Basque Parliament encourages the two majority parties to seek agreements with the State” shows the confusion or neglect of the PP, because the two majority parties of the Gasteiz Chamber are, far, PNV and EH Bildu , and from what their spokespersons stated in principle, their agreement on this matter will not please the party of Alberto Núñez Feijóo.

This is a ready-made proposal, to find in other State parliaments the confrontation between the PP and PSOE or – if you prefer – between the PP bloc with Vox and the PSOE with Podemos/Sumar. But the reality in Basque is different. And the result of the debate shows that the right of all its excesses represents a “small minority” (7 out of 75), as Arkaitz Rodríguez, from EH Bildu defines it, while the majority is not only in favor of one possible amnesty, to provide a political solution to the situation in Catalonia, but ready to go further and protect the right of Catalan citizens to decide. There are, for example, “the two majority parties” and even the EP-IU.

In the wrong place

The illegal proposal of the PP was defended by Luis Ignacio Gordillo, who spoke of the Catalan “insurrection attempt” in 2017, with cases of “extreme violence” and opposed an alleged amnesty for being unconstitutional, because for institutional reasons. and political and because it produced “a profound social disorder.” Because of the result of his proposal, it seems that in Euskal Herria the disorder is not like that. Vox and Ciudadanos examine their criticism of Pedro Sánchez and the PSOE and their willingness to swallow everything to stay in Moncloa.

But the Parliament of Gasteiz is not the best place for these talks.

David Soto, from Elkarrekin Podemos, defended the constitutionality of an amnesty and his support for the measures adopted to “de-escalate” the situation in Catalonia. He chose to provide “political solutions to political problems.”

Txarli Prieto revealed the position of the PSE, which is based on accusing the PP of “creating division and confrontation” and “lying and distorting” the truth. He emphasized the formation of a progressive government, and assured that the PP is not worried about whether or not the Constitution is followed, but whether Pedro Sánchez can manage to be re-elected, which will leave them in opposition for a long time.

Right to decide

The spokesperson of the PNV, Joseba Egibar, supports the amnesty to “reset the counter to zero” between Catalonia and the State. He emphasized that “Catalonia, like Euskadi, has the right to freely and democratically choose its future.” And he even defended that “the powers of the State must apologize to the Catalans” for the 155 and the political-judicial offensive against them that they suffered.

Arkaitz Rodríguez took the floor for EH Bildu, who assured that what never happened was the repression of 2017. In any case, after what happened he defended the amnesty as a “fair, useful and necessary step” even yet “not enough”, because the source of the problem, in Catalonia and Euskal Herria, is the non-acceptance of their national reality by the State.

Rodríguez reminded the PP that without legality, women and black people still have no rights. Regarding the fact that he was convicted for belonging to ETA, as brought up by Luis Ignacio Gordillo in the debate, he explained that the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg dismissed his trial. He told her that he had been in prison three times and all three times ended in dismissal or acquittal. Which translates to the fact that, in his 44 years, “I spent ten years in prison without pay” because of the Constitution and the legal system of Spain defended by Gordillo.