By Joan Faus
BARCELONA, July 16 (Reuters) – A disputed Spanish law granting an amnesty to those involved in Catalonia’s separatist drive does not violate European Union rules, the bloc’s top court said on Thursday, in a boost to the Spanish government and its Catalan allies.
The amnesty, approved by Spain’s parliament in 2024, was part of an agreement between the ruling Socialist Party and Catalan separatist groups that allowed Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to stay in power in 2023. The conservative opposition made several unsuccessful attempts to block the amnesty.
“(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,” said Koen Lenaerts, president of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
In its decision, the CJEU ruled that the adoption and application of the law fall within Spain’s competence.
The amnesty is the landmark bill of Sanchez’s second term, which has been marked by the minority leftist government’s difficulty in passing laws and corruption scandals affecting his party and family.
The ruling may help ease tensions between the ruling Socialists and Catalonia’s separatist party Junts, which withdrew its parliamentary support last year, citing the lack of full implementation of the amnesty law as one of the reasons.
Justice Minister Felix Bolaños welcomed the ruling.
“All Spaniards, without exception, are beneficiaries of the amnesty law,” he said, calling for its full implementation concerning senior separatist politicians.
INCOMPLETE VICTORY?
Oriol Junqueras, head of the centre-left pro-independence party ERC, which supports Sanchez’s government, welcomed the ruling but criticised judicial reluctance to fully implement the law, including in his own case. He called the victory incomplete.
The CJEU took issue with one provision of the law, ruling that Spanish courts cannot be compelled to lift financial responsibilities or halt preliminary proceedings within a fixed two-month timeframe, pending broader EU decisions.
Out of an estimated 1,600 people who could be pardoned, more than 300 have been granted amnesty for criminal and administrative offences related to Catalonia’s separatist push since 2011 and the attempt to secede from Spain in 2017, according Catalan civil group Omnium.
Still, former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont was optimistic, hailing the ruling as a “resounding victory” for the independence movement that “leaves no loophole through which our victory can be disputed” and calling to press forward with the independence cause.
The ruling could benefit Junts leader Puigdemont, who lives in self-imposed exile in Belgium, allowing him to return to Spain without fear of arrest and prosecution.
The Spanish judge handling Puigdemont’s case has said in the past the amnesty does not apply to him as he is also charged with embezzlement of public money used to finance an illegal independence referendum in 2017.
Puigdemont denies the accusation and has appealed to Spain’s Constitutional Court, with a ruling expected in September or October.
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(Reporting by Joan Faus; Additional reporting by Emma Pinedo; Editing by David Latona and Andrei Khalip)
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