José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is everywhere. The former Spanish Prime Minister (2004-2011) continues to praise the merits of the government of socialist Pedro Sánchez and to mock the right. During the campaign for the legislative elections on July 23, the 63-year-old man was called to the rescue to counter the bad omens in the polls. He thus participated in twelve meetings across the four corners of Spain. Much more than Pedro Sánchez himself, when he was a candidate for his own re-election as head of government. Since the latter won the investiture vote on November 16, at the cost of a controversial agreement between the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) and the Catalan independence movement Junts, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has always been ready to steal from his relief.
In Spain, he thus became the most fervent defender of the Catalan separatists’ amnesty bill. Intended to erase all possible crimes committed in connection with the organization of the independence referendums of 2014 and 2017, deemed illegal, this text is the subject of virulent criticism from the right-wing and extreme opposition. right, who sees it as an attack on the separation of powers and a “humiliation” facing “blackmail of the separatists”. The agreement also put the legal world on a war footing.
While within the PSOE itself, elected officials defend the amnesty with lip service, recognizing, like Pedro Sánchez himself, that it was necessary “to make a virtue of necessity”, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is full of praise. “Democracy is based on generosity, forgiveness and reconciliation, he argued again on December 3, in Seville. The government of Pedro Sánchez, with courage and determination, approved an amnesty which opens a time of serenity and calm to begin sharing a destiny with Catalonia again. »
The content of the discussions, an enigma
The day before, delegations from the PSOE and Junts had met, in secret, in Switzerland, as provided for in their investiture agreement. The exact location remained unknown. The content of the discussions, an enigma. The communiqués from both parties issued after the meeting were only clear on one point: the meeting was “cordial”.
After strong media pressure, only the name of the “verifier”, a sort of international mediator imposed by the separatists to supervise the negotiations and compliance with the agreements that could be concluded, was revealed. This is a Salvadoran diplomat, Francisco Galindo Vélez, former representative in France of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ex-ambassador in Paris, then in Colombia during the negotiations between the country’s government and the guerrillas of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Faced with the controversy caused by these revelations, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero decided with one sentence: “Political parties are free to meet with whoever they want, where they want and how they want: that is democracy. »
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