An amnesty for Catalan secessionists is a gamble worth taking

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It is six years since secessionist politicians tore Catalonia apart with an illegal referendum and unilateral declaration of independence. Their failed bid for self-rule and the nationalist backlash it unleashed across Spain continue to roil Spanish politics, polarising the electorate and making stable government hard to come by. In a parliamentary election in July — the country’s fourth in seven years — the centre-right People’s party came out on top but lacked allies for a majority even with the support of the far-right party Vox. It has thus fallen to Pedro Sánchez, the socialist leader and prime minister since 2018, to try to assemble a majority. For that he needs the support of Catalan pro-independence MPs.

Their price is an amnesty for hundreds and potentially thousands of Catalan politicians, officials and activists who enabled the failed independence push or protested against the Spanish state’s efforts to suppress it. Chief among them is Carles Puigdemont, who spearheaded Catalonia’s attempted breakaway in 2017 as its regional president and who has been a fugitive from Spanish justice ever since.

That Sánchez is willing to grant an amnesty — his negotiators were hammering out the technical details in talks with Puigdemont’s team on Monday — will outrage many Spaniards still furious at what they regard as Catalan treachery. Legal experts are divided over whether it is even constitutional. That Sánchez himself deemed an amnesty “unacceptable” before this summer’s elections only amplifies the perception of a slippery politician who will do anything to stay in office.

Polling suggests more than two-thirds of Spaniards oppose an amnesty. Socialist supporters are sceptical too and some of the party’s regional barons are opposed. Sánchez would not go down this path if his job were not on the line.

This is an expedient policy. However, it is also the right one for Catalonia and for Spain. The yawning political and social faultlines created over the independence issue will never be resolved through the actions of prosecutors and the courts alone. They require political dialogue and democratic debate. The Catalan Republic Left, the more moderate of the two secessionist parties that supported Sánchez’s last government, has already in effect abandoned unilateralism. It would only hold an independence referendum in accordance with Madrid. If the more hardline Puigdemont and his Together for Catalonia party were persuaded to do the same, that would be a major step forward.

Sánchez already deserves credit for reducing the temperature of the Catalan question, no easy feat in Spain’s superheated political atmosphere. A pardon for nine top officials jailed for their role in the referendum and independence declaration was also decried by the opposition as an act of betrayal. But it has eased tensions in Catalan society, as has renewed dialogue between the central and Catalan governments. The pardon did not revalidate or reinvigorate the cause, as critics predicted. Support for independence and its supporters has fallen, while the socialist party in Catalonia has prospered.

The prime minister’s rightwing critics say an amnesty for Catalan secessionists is an aberration that corrupts the judicial system and breaches equality before the law. Spain has introduced amnesties before and the public interest case here is compelling. Opposition bombast about betrayal does nothing to ease tensions inside Catalonia or between it and the rest of Spain. It is also a political dead end for the PP if it only sees eye to eye with the far-right.

The Spanish leader is taking a big gamble with his amnesty offer. Puigdemont might renege on a deal later on. It will almost certainly be challenged in the courts. But it is a gamble worth taking — if not entirely for the right reasons.