The new Government of Spain and its attitude towards Kosovo

Writing for Kosovo Online: Dragan Bisenic, a journalist

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, it seems, has secured the crucial support he needed to remain at the helm of the government, having reached an agreement with the Catalan separatist party Junts, led by former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont. After 15 weeks of painstaking negotiations with other leftist parties, in exchange for the support of seven Junts deputies, the Socialists agreed to propose a law granting full amnesty to everyone involved in the failed Catalonia independence referendum in 2017.

The proposed amnesty law, expected to be adopted with the support of Sanchez's leftist allies and Basque and Catalan separatist parties, would free about 1,500 people who are already convicted or currently facing trial for their involvement in various separatist actions, some organized years before or after the independence vote.

This agreement has once again divided Spanish reactions, and large demonstrations against it took place throughout Spain over the weekend. Sanchez is criticized for wanting power at any cost, even at the expense of endangering Spanish statehood, so the debate on the Catalan status and its potential independence has once again become the focus of Spanish public opinion.

A correspondent for Suddeutsche Zeitung describes Sanchez as playing "a very dangerous game". "In addition to money and amnesty, this also costs Sanchez trust. Before the July elections, he was an outspoken opponent of amnesty for Carles Puigdemont and his colleagues in the campaign. Now his U-turn divides the country to an alarming extent. Conservative media speak of corruption, while political opponents call it a 'coup'. The judiciary has announced it will resist. ... There is no doubt that the issue of Catalonia must be resolved, but not by a unilateral declaration of independence as in 2017, nor by the horse trading that Sanchez is now engaged in".

Constitutional lawyer Ana Carmona Contreras criticizes the planned amnesty law in El Pais: "Such an operation should not rely solely on political approval not only in the political sphere but also in society. ... Only then would the desired goal be legitimized – the survival of the Constitution and the resolution of the conflict. ... The current operation does not meet these requirements. Another major stumbling block is the unwillingness of the independence movement to accept the constitutional framework for its demands. ... Even if such a law were to be passed, it would only have the majority that supports Pedro Sanchez... This would cause considerable harm to the rule of law and significantly undermine the democratic system guaranteed by the constitution".

The newspaper "El Mundo" criticizes the pact as completely undemocratic but also "very significant". "PSOE opens a permanent negotiating framework between the government and Carles Puigdemont based on accepting the narrative for independence: the actors behind the independence process are victims of political persecution dating back to the 18th century and which must end. ... PSOE has decided to weaken the state rather than allow a change of government. This is a high price to pay. The pact does not contain any measures that contribute to the well-being of the Spaniards; on the contrary, everything is aimed at dividing them. How will the government justify this pact, which goes against democratic values such as freedom, equality, and solidarity among its citizens and the EU?" this newspaper asks.

In a similar but more mocking tone, La Stampa assesses that Sanchez is a "political acrobat", now performing a "double somersault without a net". The newspaper sees two questions posed – the constitutionality, which legal experts are already debating, and the second is that all those convicted can once again dedicate themselves to their goal, Catalan independence, for which they were convicted.

Madrid's El Pais welcomed such an agreement as a step forward in the atmosphere of compromise in Spain. In these coalition pacts, there are concessions on both sides, even if those involved try to conceal them. "Political education is what is needed now, not propaganda. Everything can make sense if done well, even better explained, and backed up by results. The goal is to re-establish politics and dialogue as the only means to resolve conflicts. And to renew the tradition of great autonomous pacts with Catalonia that all governments have fostered so far and that have served as a model for other autonomous regions", the newspaper emphasizes.

La Vanguardia is thrilled because the "content of the pact between PSOE and Junts is a good basis for forgetting the past and attempting to build a future of mutual respect". The newspaper believes that the agreement will strengthen the constitution, but independence supporters will not give up their ambitions.

All of this inevitably can influence the general stance of the future Spanish Government toward disputed territorial issues in Europe, and for us, the question of Spain's attitude towards Kosovo and Metohija is crucial, given that Spain is one of the key European countries that does not recognize the self-proclaimed Kosovo independence. All of this is happening in a new political atmosphere where the goal of the US and the EU is to break European states that do not recognize Kosovo, with the belief that this would pave the way for Kosovo into Euro-Atlantic integrations, regardless of the fact that Kosovo won't be a state even then until it becomes a member of the United Nations.

Spain has been one of the most principled states regarding the so-called independence of Kosovo. It voted against starting the procedure for Kosovo's admission to the Council of Europe. The reasons for this were quite obvious and were found in the parallels between these two cases. The leader of the Spanish separatists, who has been in exile in Belgium for several years but has retained his mandate in the European Parliament, has repeatedly spoken in comparisons between Spain and Kosovo.

At a European Parliament session in May of this year, Puigdemont said, "Madam President, Commissioner, the future of Kosovo is international recognition and Europe. The efforts made by Kosovo society and institutions deserve more of both: more international recognition and more Europe.

Unfortunately, there are still EU countries that do not recognize Kosovo. Some of them, like Spain, for reasons unrelated to Kosovo but related to Catalonia, do not want to recognize the legality of the unilateral declaration of independence. Therefore, Spain is the only country in the Schengen area that will not apply for the visa waiver granted by the EU. Soon, we will have the presidency of the EU Council, which will have to defend the Kosovo policy that the president does not apply to himself", Puigdemont said.

Unlike the legal and constitutional stance, there is a strong current in Spanish political life claiming that Kosovo and Catalonia are "not the same" and essentially accepting almost all the arguments of those who claim that Kosovo is a "unique case". In the law submitted for adoption on July 31, 2017, by the independence-seeking parties in the regional parliament of Catalonia for the planned referendum on October 1 regarding secession from Spain, Kosovo is mentioned, but not explicitly. Instead, they referred to "recent judgments" of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that would serve to approve the implementation of self-determination even in cases where neither colonial repression nor foreign dictatorship is involved. It is clear that there was only one advisory opinion of the ICJ on the issue of Kosovo, dated June 22, 2010. The newspaper "El Pais", which is among those advocating that Spain could recognize the independence of Kosovo, detailed this position in 2017, claiming that "Catalonia is not Kosovo". It argued that Catalonia had not "suffered the displacement of 700,000 of its citizens, as provoked by Serbia in Kosovo", nor had it "been subject to crushing political and military occupation, and no international force was needed for its liberation, as was the case with Kosovo".

The Spanish newspaper stated that the legal framework in Kosovo had not excluded the declaration of independence, unlike the Spanish Constitution that did. Despite ambiguities and judicial contradictions, the ICJ made great efforts to put the judgment in the unique and exclusive context of Kosovo, El Pais noted. In support of this, it refers to a particular interpretation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which establishes the possibility of Kosovo's independence. The ICJ offered another argument in favor of Kosovo's independence because UN Security Council Resolution 1244 "did not explicitly prohibit the declaration of independence". This prohibition was not included because if the Security Council wanted to impose conditions for the definitive future of Kosovo, it would have specified them, as was the case with "contemporary practice" in Cyprus, where the Security Council called for "sole sovereignty". If the Security Council wanted to prohibit the declaration of independence of Kosovo, it would have done so, as it did in Resolution 787 (1992) concerning the Republika Srpska, Spanish lawyers argued.

They missed the fact that Resolution 1244 explicitly states that Kosovo and Metohija is a part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, i.e., Serbia, so in that sense, any further need for prohibitions on independence or secession is eliminated. The resolution on Bosnia and Herzegovina pertains to a completely different situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, not to "Dayton Bosnia". In any case, the argument that Spain could recognize Kosovo's independence without directly encouraging and strengthening the demands of Catalan separatist parties does not hold water.

It is more likely a rather clumsy and naive attempt to distort legal opinion, providing Spain and Kosovo with a platform for mutual recognition, ostensibly without harming Spain. Along the same lines, in 2018, the then-Prime Minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, spoke to El Pais. Haradinaj told El Pais that Kosovo "will never recognize the independence of Catalonia from Spain", adding that Kosovo and Catalonia had nothing in common, and establishing any analogy is "meaningless".

Haradinaj stated that insisting on similarities between these two cases would mean "denying history or misinterpreting it" because Kosovo "fought for democracy, but above all, for human rights", which is not the case with Catalonia. However, such slogans do not impress Spanish legal experts who almost unanimously maintain the position that Spain should not embark on adventures of recognizing unilaterally declared independence, regardless of where and when. Let's not forget that Spain is an empire that early faced this issue and meticulously worked out all aspects of gaining independence. Therefore, if the platform "Kosovo is not Catalonia" were approved, such an opinion would have been presented long ago. Since it hasn't and Spain consistently behaves in this case, there are strong and compelling legal reasons for that.