Controversial amnesty law clears first hurdle in Spain’s parliament – Spain

2023-12-13 14:32:44

The Spanish amnesty law cleared the first hurdle late on Tuesday evening. 178 of the 350 deputies in Spain’s lower house, the Congress, voted to admit the law to consideration. It is intended to enable the charges surrounding the independence referendum in Catalonia on October 1, 2017 to be dropped. The vote was followed by a heated debate between the representatives of the eight parties that are in favor of an amnesty – in addition to the two government partners, the socialist PSOE and the left-wing alternative Sumar, other left-wing parties as well as the supporters of the independence of Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia – and the ahead of both right-wing parties, the Partido Popular (PP) and Vox.