Spain Lawmakers Begin Debating Divisive Amnesty Bill

Spanish lawmakers on Tuesday began debating a controversial bill to grant an amnesty to Catalan separatists that was pledged by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in order to remain in power.

The amnesty offer came six years after a failed independence bid by Catalan separatists, with Sanchez insisting it would help "turn the page" on Spain's worst political crisis in decades that still stirs up very raw emotions.

For years, Sanchez opposed such a move but recently admitted he'd had a change of heart.

Even though such a step was "complex to explain" to the Spanish public, it was a "necessary decision" to learn from what happened in 2017 and move towards a "resolution" of the conflict with Catalonia, he said Monday.

"What we're trying to do is.. to find a way out of this never-ending, hopeless confrontation" over Catalonia, said Patxi Lopez, spokesman for Sanchez's Socialists as the parliamentary debate kicked off.

Promising the measure would be swiftly adopted by Spain's parliament had won Sanchez the key support of Catalan separatist lawmakers that enabled him to be sworn in last month for a new term in office.

It will likely take several months to become law, but when it does, it will allow the courts to drop the charges against hundreds of separatist leaders and activists facing legal action over the October 2017 crisis.

That process should be completed within two months.

First and foremost, the move benefits Carles Puigdemont who headed Catalonia's regional government when it staged a referendum banned by Madrid then made a short-lived declaration of independence.

Considered by many Spaniards as public enemy number one, he fled to Belgium to avoid prosecution although the amnesty will allow him to return home.

Although the amnesty proposal is backed by a majority drawn from the ranks of the left, the radical left and Basque and Catalan parties, it has deeply divided Spanish society and provoked an outcry from parts of the judiciary.

In recent weeks, huge crowds of protesters have hit the streets to denounce the amnesty, answering a call by the right-wing opposition Popular Party (PP) placed first in July's general election but without enough support to form a government.

Opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo, who has angrily denounced the measure, described Tuesday's debate as "the saddest parliamentary session" since February 1981 when disgruntled right-wing officers stormed parliament in an attempted coup d'etat.

"This is a humiliation for Spain," he declared.

The PP, which holds an absolute majority in parliament's Senate upper house, has promised to do everything to delay the adoption of the bill that the Socialists want fast-tracked to speed up its promulgation.

The Senate can delay but not block the adoption of the measure.

Accusing Sanchez of a "coup d'etat", the leader of the far-right Vox party Santiago Abascal went a step further in his criticism over the weekend, saying the prime minister would meet a dictator's end.

"The time will come when... the Spanish people will want to string up (Sanchez) by the feet," he told the Argentine daily Clarin, in remarks that prompted an angry backlash from the government.

Denouncing Abascal for "hate speech that seeks to polarise and incite violence", Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said such language hadn't been heard "in Spain for many decades, since times that were very dark," referring to the 1936-39 civil war and ensuing dictatorship that ended in 1975.

More worrying for the government is the fact that the amnesty has deeply divided Sanchez's Socialists, with a survey published Monday in El Mundo daily showing 45.8 percent of those who voted for him in July were opposed to the measure.