In a week in which Madrid celebrated the holiday of San Isidro, the Senate was not scheduled to hold plenary sessions. However, the Popular Party, with an absolute majority in the upper house, introduced two extraordinary sessions in their agenda. The first debate, on Tuesday, was to push through the veto on the amnesty law. And another one, on Thursday, to withdraw the conflict of powers between the Senate and the Congress that the Popular Party spokesperson, Alicia García, announced with great fanfare two months ago. In both cases, they were pushing the deadlines to the limit. The plenary session scheduled for Thursday implies that the Popular Party renounces taking the clash to the extreme by taking the lower chamber to the Constitutional Court. This exposes the loopholes in their own strategy, which other groups have used to accuse Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party of making a “ridiculous” move and getting themselves into a “mental mess” with no way out. Some PP senators privately identify with these epithets. “It’s absurd. What a mess!” laments a popular parliamentary source.
“The question we have to ask ourselves is why we are here.” The reflection launched by the PP spokesperson, Antonio Silván, at the beginning of his speech from the podium provoked laughter and ironic applause from the socialists. The Senate plenary session approved on April 10 initiating the process of powers conflict with the Congress over the amnesty law. The deadline to finalize the process was this Friday, the last day to go to the oversight body, after the Congress responded on April 16 to the Senate with a report arguing that the conditions for such a conflict were not met. The Popular Party argues that the Congress’ Board is not competent to respond, and the initiative should have been subjected to debate and vote in the Congress plenary session. This was explained by Silván. However, all groups considered the excuse given by the Popular Party to be nothing more than a shield to avoid a “blow” from the oversight court before the appeal for unconstitutionality, when the law is already in force. This fear, acknowledged by PP sources, led them to convene Thursday’s plenary session to withdraw the powers conflict they had raised themselves. The reversal was approved by 140 votes in favor from the PP, one against from Vox, and two abstentions, one from Coalición Canaria and the other from UPN. The rest of the groups did not participate in the vote as a sign of protest.
Vox’s spokesperson, Paloma Gómez, accused the Popular Party of “betraying” PP voters in Catalonia. “If the PP does not fight to the end to prevent the amnesty law, we will consider them necessary collaborators.” Feijóo’s party announced the powers conflict between the Congress and Senate, a parliamentary tool never used in democracy, to prolong the noise against the amnesty law for public consumption. But above all, to act as a shield against Vox, which directly demanded that they halt the processing of the law in the Senate. But the institutional clash weapon has ended up being a boomerang that the far-right senator has used against the Popular Party. “It is another example of how this group is unable to defend the rule of law to the end,” said Gómez. The other groups insisted that the Popular Party feared going definitively to the Constitutional Court and accused the PP, once again, of manipulating the functioning of the Senate with their absolute majority. “They wanted to wait until the last moment for no other reason than to prolong the discussion about the amnesty law over their own mistake,” said Geroa Bai senator Uxue Barcos. “They invite us to a charade of shamelessness, perhaps because they already know the answer and do not want to make a fool of themselves again at the Constitutional Court,” added Sumar parliamentarian Carla Antonelli. “President Tarradellas used to say that ‘in politics one can do everything except making a fool of oneself’, and when you have an absolute majority, you make an absolute fool of yourself,” added Junts senator Josep Lluís Cleries. “Does the Popular Party have the right to change the plenary schedule? Yes. Does the PP have the right to make the biggest fool of themselves that has been seen in this Senate? Also,” said socialist parliamentarian Antonio Fajardo.
After a barrage of epithets, PP senator Antonio Silván had to speak from the podium in the last turn of spokespersons as the largest group. Because the Popular Party did not even take the opportunity to speak first to defend their position in favor of their initiative. Apart from explaining why they would not go to the Constitutional Court, Silván warned: “We will study the legal actions that correspond to us,” about the possibility of taking legal measures against the decision of the Congress Board to respond negatively to the powers conflict instead of holding an ad hoc plenary session. With this announcement, the PP continues to entangle with an unprecedented institutional clash that has been diluted and turned against them.
