CONTINUE
The amendments to the entire ERC and Junts per Catalunya to the National Security Law have been shipwrecked by the opposition of the PP. The draft law of the Government of PSOE and United We Can, therefore, will continue to be processed in Congress, the vetoes planned by the independence movement have already been raffled off. However, this Thursday's debate does not bode well for the Executive, which will have to negotiate with the right if it wants its rule to be approved.
The Minister of the Presidency, the socialist Félix Bolaños, has defended the Government's bill before a semi-empty chamber, just a few hours after his long appearance on Wednesday afternoon, in which he faced endless reproaches for the management of the Pegasus Case Executive. The alleged espionage to separatists and members of the central Executive has been present during the debate of the National Security Law in both directions.
With sovereignism criticizing an alleged ideological persecution and the right-wing parties blaming the fact that it has allowed ERC, EH Bildu, Junts and the CUP to enter the official secrets commission.
Bolaños has defended the need to expand the National Security Law approved in 2015 with the PP Government, given the learning from the Covid-19 pandemic and the risks involved in the war in Ukraine due to the invasion carried out by Russia of Vladimir Putin. The minister has wanted to tackle the criticism of his project firsthand and has denied that autonomous powers are being violated, as the independentistas denounce, or that an organic law is needed -which requires reinforced majorities-, since the changes planted by the Government not improved to fundamental rights nor do they modify another organic law, but an ordinary one.
The bill debated this Thursday was fulfilled in the Council of Ministers three months ago with the intention of creating a catalog of public and private resources to register the means available to the State in a situation of "interest for national security". The list will be drawn up by ministries, autonomous and local executives, and they will have data on human resources, material means, facilities and all relevant files to manage crisis situations. "We have seen how vital it is to avoid dependence on the outside in materials as diverse as medicines, medical supplies and energy", Bolaños justified.
“They spy on us for what we think”
After the minister's intervention, Míriam Nogueras (Junts) and Montserrat Bassa (ERC) took the floor. The first has defended a devolution amendment and the second, another devolution and a second alternative text amendment that, directly, requested the repeal of the current National Security Law, considering it unnecessary. The devolution amendments have been rejected with 299 votes against and 37 in favor, and the alternative text has fallen with 302 against and 34 in favor.
Nogueras has spoken of the "withering away" of regional powers, and has criticized that the Government's rule is ambiguous and leaves room for interpretation to define that it is a threat to national security.
“Should we worry considering that the State considers the independence movement a threat? They spy on us not because of what we do, but because of what we think”, criticized Nogueras, referring to the interventions of the mobile independentists with the Pegasus malware. "I wonder if it seems normal or far from the times of [Mariano] Rajoy that political dissidence is spied on", he has sentenced.
Bassa, from the hard profile of ERC and sister of the pardoned Dolors Bassa, has assured that there were no doubts in her party about whether or not to maintain the amendments to the whole, although yesterday Wednesday some sources from her parliamentary group did say that there was a debate on the respect. “A gesture of goodwill would not be for the ERC to withdraw its amendments in its entirety, it would be for the Government to withdraw its bill”, she has claimed.
Apart from the internal argument, the Republican deputy has reproached Bolaños for the national security laws being made, according to her, “against the security of the Catalan nation and the rest of the nations of the State”. Bassa has branded the law "repressive" and has accused the PSOE of "buying the framework of the right", "legitimizing" the 2015 text and giving it "one more twist". “With the approval of this law, gentlemen of the PSOE, you do not win, Vox wins. They are giving them all the repressive resources on a silver platter for when they reach the Government”, she pointed out.
The PNV, against the law
Mikel Legarda (PNV) has criticized, in addition to the alleged invasion of powers, that the law does not provide compensation for damages caused to natural or legal persons in the application of the rule. The Basque nationalists, who already opposed the PP text in 2015, are not among the Government's potential allies in this field, nor has Bildu -Jon Iñarritu criticized that the Executive's "first impulse" in the face of crises is to "centralize ”- nor of course the CUP.
The speeches of Sonia Ferrer (PSOE) and Ismael Cortés (Unidas Podemos) have been of little use to Bolaños. The latter almost seemed to apologize for the Confederal Group's rejection of the amendments to the entire ERC and Junts: «.
The legislative amendment remains in the hands of the right, and especially the PP, the only party that has shown itself willing to negotiate with the government. The deputy Juan Antonio Callejas, also critical of the fact that there is no economic compensation to those who must cede their assets for national security reasons, has made it clear that although his party did not reinforce the amendments to the entirety this Thursday, it will not deliver “a blank check to Pedro Sanchez. The PP reaches out to him, he has said, but to negotiate “article by article”. The general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, has come forward in the corridors of Congress where she is preparing partial amendments to the articles.
Javier Ortega Smith (Vox) and Miguel Gutiérrez (Citizens) have agreed on the difficulty of supporting a security law planted by this Government, which has put the independentistas in the commission of official secrets and has dismissed Paz Esteban this week, previous director of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), "to satisfy separatism." “It is unthinkable that we can give him the support of a government that is disloyal to the general interest,” said Ortega Smith. "This government is a national insecurity and its partners are a danger," Gutiérrez has settled.
The PP deputy Juan Antonio Callejas reproached Rafael Simancas – Efe
The manipulation of Simancas to attack ABC reaches the plenary session of Congress
The PP, which this Thursday has saved the National Security Law from the pro-independence vetoes, has underlined its discrepancies with the Government's behavior in its bill. That they only give the Council of State six days to analyze it, that they not send it the 4.000 allegations filed against it… Rafael Simancas versus ABC.
The deputy Juan Antonio Callejas has branded Simancas' actions against the ABC journalist Ana I. Sánchez, whom he has cited by her nom. The director of this newspaper published information, "The Council of State rejects the National Security Law", which the socialist deputy tried to dismantle on Twitter with a lie and manipulation. First, he said that ABC did not begin in its information that the Council of State did not appreciate the unconstitutionality of the law; something that is false and that in fact was the start of the news. Second, he compared the final consideration of the reports of the Council of State, but cutting out the part that was most critical of the Government and only including the part that was most favorable to it.
That "regrettable fact", the deputy Callejas has registered, assumed that the Federation of Associations of Journalists of Spain (FAPE) came "to the aid" of the editor. Simancas, sitting on his seat, shook his head while the PP parliamentarian denounced these events from the speakers' gallery. The Secretary of State has never retracted.
