In recent political memory, few spectacles have been as surprising as the sight of David Cameron striding back into Downing Street to become Britain’s new foreign secretary. But Mr Cameron’s Lazarus-style comeback may yet be put in the shade by the career resurrection of the exiled Catalan separatist Carles Puigdemont.
Following Spain’s inconclusive snap election in the summer, Mr Puigdemont’s Together for Catalonia party has unexpectedly found itself occupying a kingmaker role as the caretaker prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, seeks enough votes to stay in power. The price of its support is an amnesty deal which could benefit Mr Puigdemont and hundreds of other activists facing criminal charges related to his failed independence campaign.
Mr Sánchez is known for his political gambles, but this may be his biggest one. Having ruled out such an amnesty before the election, the mathematics of the result has forced him to think again. Polls suggest that more than two-thirds of Spaniards oppose an amnesty, and the rehabilitation of the pugnacious Mr Puigdemont is likely to be even less popular. At the weekend, there were protests across the country, organised by the centre-right People’s party (PP) and the far-right Vox. The legal process, which will proceed on a case-by-case basis, is likely to be protracted, drawn-out and unpopular.
Yet notwithstanding the fraught context, Mr Sánchez is right to take the risk, and not just on the grounds of political self-interest. In 2021, there was also an outcry after his decision to pardon nine jailed Catalan separatists. At the time, he observed that “Spanish society needs to move from a bad past to a better future – and that will require magnanimity”. Six years after Mr Puigdemont’s ill-conceived referendum provoked a draconian response from Madrid, that remains true.
The pardons undoubtedly helped defuse poisonous confrontations that led to Spain’s worst constitutional crisis since the return of democracy. Catalan enthusiasm for unilateral action has waned since 2017, while support for independence has fallen from a high of 49% and now stands in the low 40s. Mr Sánchez’s socialist colleague Santos Cerdán was justified in saying last week that the current negotiations offered a “historic opportunity to resolve a conflict that could – and should – only be resolved politically”.
A two-day parliamentary debate, which promises to be stormy, will almost certainly see Mr Sánchez narrowly confirmed as prime minister on Thursday – assisted by Basque nationalist votes as well as Catalan separatist ones. In a country where politics has become deeply fractured and polarised, this is a messy and fragile outcome. But it is also a far better one for Spain than a PP-led government, which would have brought the far right in from the cold for the first time since the end of dictatorship.
Having performed disappointingly in the election, the ultranationalist Vox will use the amnesty as a means to regroup. Protest rallies involving Vox politicians and neo-fascist groups have led to violent skirmishes with police. The party’s leader, Santiago Abascal, has called for a resistance campaign, and portrayed Thursday’s vote as a “coup d’état”. Mr Sánchez will have his work cut out to reconcile mainstream Spanish opinion, and many members of the judiciary, to his deal with Mr Puigdemont and company. But as a bulwark against such extremism on the far right, his continued presence in power will be good news for the country, and for Europe.
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