Spanish minister: ETA terrorism, Catalan separatists’ actions can’t be compared

Attacks committed by now-dismantled Basque terrorist group ETA and the actions of Catalan separatist groups cannot be compared, Spanish Justice Minister Félix Bolaños said on Wednesday after the Partido Popular, the main opposition force in parliament, insinuated as much.

“Let’s be serious, does anyone really believe that the independence process (in Catalonia) is comparable to the terrorism (by ETA) that Spain suffered for decades? Does anyone really believe that? What we all understand by terrorism, what Spain suffered for decades of terrorism that is outside the (future amnesty law)”, Bolaños said, Euractiv’s partner EFE and El País reported.

The minister’s comments came parliament’s PP spokesman Miguel Tellado on Tuesday criticised Sanchez’s ruling PSOE for agreeing to demands from separatist parties JxCat and ERC to introduce amendments to the amnesty bill, allowing for very specific cases of alleged “terrorism” and violent actions committed by the Catalan separatist movement between 2012 and 2023 to be featured as grounds for clemency under the currently discussed bill.

“The Socialist Party has lost what little dignity it had left. If there is one thing we know in Spain, it is what terrorism is. We have suffered it for a long time (the terrorism of the disbanded Basque group ETA), and Spain does not deserve a government willing to pardon and amnesty terrorists”, Tellado added.

ETA killed about 840 people in the 60 years it was active.  On 3 May 2023, Spain commemorated five years of the formal end of the group.

The aim of the future amnesty law is to “normalise the political, institutional and social situation in Catalonia”, Bolaños reiterated.

It also aims to finally overcome a “very deep wound in Catalonia and the rest of Spain”.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)