Spain's far right, which at all times has supported the country's state of alarm declared against coronavirus, now demands that it be taken further. In the lead-up to Wednesday's debate in the Congress of Deputies on extending the emergency, the far-right Vox parliamentary group - third largest party in Spain - has submitted its proposals to the governing PSOE. In total, there are about twenty propositions, including the recentralization of "all the powers" of the Catalan government, the suspension of pardons for prisoners and the expulsion of irregular immigrants.
The first of these proposals has to do with Catalonia's self-government. Although Vox upholds that "each [regional] administration should retain the powers granted by the current legislation in the ordinary management of its services to adopt the measures it deems necessary", the extremist party believes one case must be treated differently: Catalonia. "By exception, in the case of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia, all autonomous powers will be assumed by the competent authority defined in Article 4 "of the state of alarm decree, says the Vox document.
In the field of immigration, the party asserts that the existing immigrant internment centres (CIEs) for undocumented immigrants should be kept open and mass expulsions should be carried out later: "The period of stay in the CIEs for irregular aliens [should be] extended for the entire duration of the state of alarm, even if the initial term has already finished, for compelling reasons of general interest. At the end of the state of alarm, [the immigrants] will be immediately expelled from Spanish territory." Last week, the majority of the 40 people interned in the Barcelona CIE were released, due to the current emergency.
Without mentioning the Catalan pro-independence political prisoners, Vox also proposes that pardoning of prisoners for offences should be suspended for the duration of the state of alarm.