The fact that the squawks of the Spanish political barnyard have reached Strasbourg and the European Parliament has held a debate on the proposal for a Spanish amnesty law is a bad sign. By that, we do not, obviously, refer to the fact that an internal issue is being debated in Europe, something that should always be applauded; from Catalonia, if there is one thing we have criticized in the past, it is that such issues were not debated. But rather, it is a bad sign because it makes it clear that the ability to spread fake news is advancing much faster than the faculty to ensure that the truth is the backbone of a debate.
The very title of the session did not correspond to any reality: "Threat to the rule of law as a result of a governmental agreement in Spain". Of course it's a fake story, but no matter: the power of the right in Europe, with large parliamentary groups in the European Parliament - in addition to that of the People's Party (PP), those that include the representatives of Spain's Ciudadanos (Cs) and Vox - and in the European Commission, where, for example, the justice commissioner, Didier Reynders, is from the liberal family and very close to conservative positions, allowed a debate to be held on a bill that has not even been processed in Spain's Congress of Deputies; and it has yet to go to the Senate, return to Congress and have the Constitutional Court rule on it.
In fact, even if you don't want to see it this way, what was addressed in Strasbourg is the underlying debate: the agreements between the Socialists (PSOE) and Together for Catalonia (Junts) - also, of course, with the Republican Left (ERC) - and the concessions that were made by Pedro Sánchez. That's why the right wing always uses the slogan of "the seven votes", followed by a whole series of lies such as that the rule of law is at risk in Spain, that judicial decisions are manipulated or that a deal is being made with fugitives, public-funds embezzlers and a bunch of other criminals to continue in the Moncloa palace.
The PSOE, however, does need to utter a mea culpa here: its past, in which it also talked about fugitives and assured that there would be no amnesty, is what haunts it. Since 2017, it has busied itself propagating a certain discourse in the European institutions, which, now, due to political needs, it is trying to modify, and it has been caught wrong-footed. Hearing a succession of PSOE representatives propagating the virtues of the amnesty is almost divine justice. But they walked into this mud pool all by themselves in 2017 when they aligned themselves with the PP and neither knew how nor wanted to resist the pressure, when in fact there was no rebellion, no sedition, nor anything like that. At the most, the pro-independence leaders' offences were disobedience and nothing more.
Now, the Spanish Socialists have had to pull in the slack and argue the opposite of what they've been saying for the last six years to their colleagues in the European group. Through this gap the PP has slipped in, and it is now the ample avenue in which some are now defending the amnesty law and others criticizing it. So be it: when you make mistakes, you always pay for them.