CONFERENCE ON CURRENT SPANISH POLITICS

In an event organized by the Foundation for a civic Hungary and under the title “Spain at crossroads”, MEPs Eniko Gyori, Hermann Tertsch and Javier Zarzalejos met to discuss recent events in Spanish politics.

The Hungarian MEP, Eniko Gyori, a great connoisseur of Spanish politics as she was the Hungarian ambassador to Spain for five years, expressed her astonishment at the enormous number of Spaniards who had demonstrated against the amnesty on Sunday, November 12, in all the Spanish provincial capitals. She pointed out that never before in the history of Spain had there been such massive demonstrations except after the attempted coup d’état in 1981 and in 1997 on the occasion of the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Miguel Angel Blanco at the hands of the ETA terrorist group.

MEP Zarzalejos explained to the international audience at the event that the events we are witnessing in Spanish politics respond to the simple fact that the Socialist Party’s candidate for the presidency of the Government, who lost the general elections held in July, needed seven seats in order to be proclaimed president.

Zarzalejos lamented that “Sánchez has relied on a fugitive from Spanish justice and whose impunity was lifted by the European Parliament, Puigdemont, on a convicted terrorist, Otegi, and on a convicted sedition and embezzlement offender, Junqueras”. In exchange for these supports, the MEP explained, the PSOE registered in the Spanish Parliament a proposal for an amnesty law by which it intends to erase the crimes of all politicians involved in the so-called “Catalan process”. “It is about impunity of politicians to politicians, something that is unthinkable that can fit in any member state of the European Union whose fundamental pillar is respect for the rule of law” he said. “In many countries of the Union there are nationalist parties and separatist movements, but the differential fact with the rest of Europe is that the Spanish left is aligned with this nationalism and separatism”, he concluded.