Speaking at the debate on the review of the Spanish Presidency in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Jorge Buxadé, head of the ECR Group's Spanish delegation, sharply criticised Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez over a controversial amnesty law and failures within Spain and on the European level.

Buxadé accused Sánchez of dealing a blow to democracy with the unconstitutional amnesty law for separatists in order to stay in power, trampling on the constitution and ending the equality of Spaniards before the law. “Passing a blatantly unconstitutional special law to benefit a certain group of people who have also committed the most serious crimes against their country is a step backwards by centuries,” said Buxadé. “And when judges annul your illegal appointments, the tyrant in you who rejects the legitimacy of the judiciary comes out”, Buxadé added.

Buxadé also diagnosed that Sánchez had been unable to pursue his own country’s priorities in Brussels, as is customary for presidency holders, because of the political instability he had created. None of Spain’s problems had been on the European agenda, said Buxadé. He accused Sánchez of doing nothing about mass immigration, which he said was fuelling the business of mafias involved in human trafficking. Neither water policy, nor the defence of farmers and livestock breeders against unfair foreign competition, nor the urgent need for industrialisation, nor the fight against depopulation had been put on the European agenda, Buxadé said.

Instead, according to Buxadé, Sánchez had distributed European funds to public institutions to further weave his web of personal connections and maintain his personal power.

“You will go down in history as a president who committed perjury. You will be remembered for destroying the guarantees of the rule of law. You will be remembered for trying to destroy what our parents and grandparents worked hard to build”, Buxadé concluded.