MADRID/SANTANDER, 27 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has summoned this Thursday the Government of Pedro Sánchez to clarify if he is willing to protect Spain after the “divergence” of opinions in relation to the crime of sedition. That said, he has advanced that if he governs he will aggravate the penalties for the crime of sedition and rebellion, and will criminalize the calling of an illegal referendum.
This has been pronounced in the Global Youth Leadership Forum that is held in the Palacio de la Magdalena in Santander, in the midst of negotiations between PSOE and PP to renew the General Council of the Judiciary and the Constitutional Court. However, the leader of the opposition has not linked this reform of the crime of sedition with the CGPJ, a specific matter on which he has not made any mention during his intervention, which has not yet been finalized.
This Thursday, in the Budget debate, the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, announced –in response to ERC– the commitment of the President of the Government to bring to the Lower House a reform of several crimes of the Penal Code, including that of sedition, to homologate them to European standards. Shortly after, in the corridors of the Chamber, she specified that the Government will not take the sedition reform to Congress if there is no majority to approve it.
Feijóo has highlighted that the crimes of sedition and rebellion are typified in the criminal codes of liberal and Western democracies with “very harshness” because it is about preserving the “unity of the nation”, given that in some cases it has a sentence of ” permanent prison.
The head of the opposition has lamented that the Government of Spain has pro-independence political parties as partners that were “the authors” of a “rebellion-sedition” that occurred in 2017 and has stressed that there is now a debate about whether what is to do is reduce the penalties for these crimes or increase them.
After assuring that the PP is in favor of increasing the penalties and being “strong” in classifying them, it has advanced that if it reaches Moncloa it will do so and will classify the calling of an illegal referendum with a “clear and forceful sanction in The criminal code”.
However, he has criticized the “divergence” between the PSOE Executive and United We Can. “We don’t know exactly where the Government is going. There are contradictions between different members of the Government and we need to know if the Government is willing to protect Spanish democracy or if it is willing to intervene as a Government,” she emphasized.
