What happens next in Spain? 4 scenarios for Sánchez's amnesty deal with Catalan separatists

Somebody, some other institution, stops it. The King. Europe. The courts. Not happening, at least not before the vote happens. King Felipe is a modern, constitutional monarch, not an ancien régime absolutist tyrant. Constitutionally, as far as I understand it, he cannot refuse to sign a law that parliament has passed. He has no wriggle room to imprint his personal marque on events. If he were to try, the crisis might even go up a level to talk of abdication. This is not national-to-regional constitutional authority like in 2017, this is the Prime Minister himself doing a deal with a fugitive from justice, to stay on as PM. His party, the PSOE, controls Congress, the seat of national sovereignty, via the Speaker and the Speaker’s Committee. Vox petitioned the Supreme Court yesterday for an injunction to stop the debate today, on the grounds of bribery, terrorism and abuse of authority, and the Supreme Court rejected that this morning. Europe doesn’t work on such short timelines. The latest message was from Von der Leyen’s spokesman, Eric Mamer, in a tweet yesterday: “the Commission has received today the draft law from the Spanish authorities and has just started its analysis”. The Polish rule-of-law crisis with the European Commission began…in 2015. A “maximum priority”, “urgent” response from Spain’s Constitutional Court, might be…three months, once appeals start being filed.

So the debate begins at 12 p.m. today. 1,500 police reinforcements have been drafted in to lock down Congress and the surrounding streets.

Last-minute political backstabbing. House-of-Cards style, with secret power grabs and behind-the-scenes dirty moves. Maybe García-Page’s eight MPs from Castilla la Mancha will rebel, given his public statements against the deal. Maybe the PP and Vox offer Sánchez some MPs at the last minute to tempt him away from the separatists and the far-left. Maybe some random socialist or Sumar MPs will have a crisis of conscience and an actual independent thought. Maybe Sánchez himself will rip up the deal after being reappointed PM this week, stabbing Puigdemont in the political back. Maybe, but probably, almost certainly, not. Spanish MPs, in Spain’s party political system, do not rebel against the party line and the boss. There is no independence of thought or action when voting buttons are pressed. In practice, you could reduce the number of MPs in Congress in Madrid from the current 350 to about 10 and all the votes would come out with the same result. Likewise, there is no chance of the PP and Vox offering, or of Sánchez accepting, their votes in a European style grand, cross-party coalition. None of them could stomach that. For several years now, in a political environment in which no one has even a majority, never mind a supermajority large enough to change the constitution, Sánchez has always chosen, voluntarily, when faced with the pressure of events, the far-left (Podemos, Sumar) and regional separatists, instead of the constitutional right or even the liberal centre. If he used Puigdemont to get reappointed and then ripped up the amnesty deal, what would he do for a budget and all the other laws he will want to pass for the rest of the parliament, through to 2027?

The radical right does something stupid. At other moments in Spanish history, with grave national risk perceived by conservatives or the far-right or the old establisment, with no apparent mechanisms to stop or slow events, a general would be found to ride to Congress on a horse or with a bus-load of soldiers to try to put a stop to the left and regional separatists “destroying Spain”. It has happened several times before, from the mid 19th-Century onwards. One of those episodes, although the systemic causes were much more complex, ended very badly in the Civil War and 40 years of Francoist dictatorship. The last attempt was “only” in 1981, with Tejero shooting at the ceiling of the chamber in Congress where today’s debate will happen. Just yesterday, in constitutional terms. In 2023, a military or general officer option is not going to happen…but there is a chance the radical right might attempt a Trump- or Bolsonaro- style Jan 6. assault on parliament, which is more in vogue as a desperate protest measure. Tucker Carlson was in Madrid this week, smiling alongside Vox leader Abascal outside PSOE headquarters. Alt-right Telegram channels and influencer channels in Spain have been buzzing for two weeks with ideas about different levels of protest in different places. There are even some among them who are annoyed at the King and the whole 1978 constitutional system. The main group behind them, Revuelta (linked to Vox), last night told all its supporters to get down to Congress this morning. This is the reason there are 1,500 extra police around parliament in Madrid today. And sometimes these things snowball out of hand, once people start interacting in real life and others start finding out about it.

It all just blows over. Basically what we have here, underneath it all, is Puigdemont sees his chance to come home without going to jail and Sánchez gets to be Prime Minister for another four years. The rest of it is fluff to make that core exchange happen. As we have seen, respect for the rule of law in Spain is not as stringent on principle as it might be in some other nations or cultures. Does anybody really care about the thousands of political corruption cases at all levels over the past 20 years, beyond using it as polarised ammunition to lob at the other side? And as we are all seeing, if you have political mates in the right places, pesky judges and even whole chunks of criminal law and entire crimes can be made to go away if you have a few votes someone needs to stay in power. Get the wording and the frames right in the language in your bill, pound it home with friendly talking-heads on TV for a couple of months so that everybody just shrugs after a few growls, and job done, people will move on to the next big story, or to enjoying Christmas, which is just around the corner. The other institutions won’t stop it, the political parties won’t stop it, the radical right won’t get anywhere even if they do try to storm parliament, Sánchez gets his votes this week in Congress, the amnesty bill goes through, enough to be published in the official gazette, which means it becomes law, some people file some appeals but courts take months to decide, Puigdemont comes home, spends a triumphant couple of days on TV smiling and by Easter, all the fuss has died down. Sánchez is still PM and the right is stuck in opposition until 2027.