The Government is almost certain that there will be an agreement with the PP for the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and the Constitutional Court although it does not offer details on how the issue that most distances them will be resolved: the change in the law to advance in the depoliticization of justice.
While negotiations continue between the Minister of the Presidency, Felix Bolaños, and the Deputy Secretary of Institutional Affairs of the PP, Esteban González Ponsthe spokeswoman for the Executive, Isabel Rodríguez, highlighted “after four years we are moving forward” to achieve an agreement. “We are forging it,” he stressed.
For this reason, he avoided emphasizing the differences that are, precisely, whether or not a legal modification is necessary to give more decision-making power to the judges in the election of the body that manages the judiciary. Something that the PP requests and Brussels recommends and that the Government does not see convenient because the designation, they point out, belongs to Congressand because that change does not have sufficient parliamentary support.
Despite the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, suggested this Tuesday that Pedro Sanchez has committed to addressing this legislative change but not now but it would be postponed for a few months. The spokeswoman avoided referring to this issue and pointed out that “we work for the agreement” and we must not “focus on the difference”. In any case, she recalled that the Executive is against changing the law but without going too far. Her message was that this anomaly should be “ended as soon as possible”, in reference to the fact that the popular have been blocking the renewal of the CGPJ for almost four years with all kinds of conditions.
The impulse to the negotiations took place this Sunday, late in the afternoon, when the president of the Supreme Court and the CGPJ, Carlos Lesmes, made public his intention to formalize his resignation the following day due to the lack of progress in the talks between the Government and the PP. That announcement led Pedro Sánchez to contact Feijóo that same Monday.
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The meeting itself was already a sign that something was beginning to move in an issue that has been blocked for almost four years. One and the other are totally involved in the slamming of the door in Lesmes and in the repeated calls from Brussels. In the recent visit of the EU Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, he made it clear that the Council should be renewed and the law changed “immediately”. So the meeting could not be in vain.
And that is exactly what happened. After three hours of meeting, in which Bolaños and Pons joined halfway through, the appearances of both paid that they conspired to give a new opportunity to the negotiation and to do so urgently. From both parties it is ensured that the pact can be closed at any time.