In light of current events unfolding in Spain, President Marsilio addressed the CoR Plenary to describe the situation as a "real attack on the rule of law", adding that the European Commission has been resoundingly "silent" on the affair. 

On behalf of the ECR Group, the Abruzzo Region President attributed "the greatest level of corruption" to a politician who grants amnesty to other politicians to stay in power. Mr Marsilio emphasized that the adoption of the amnesty law "undermines respect for the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary". 

Erasing crimes such as sedition, embezzlement, insurgency and even terrorism in exchange for seven useful votes to form the government is "not in line with the value of our founding fathers and our idea of Europe", he expressed.

The President concluded with an expression of solidarity, on behalf of the European Conservatives with the thousands of Spanish citizens who have been "protesting peacefully for days against this authoritarian drift". 

ECR member Lorenzo Galligani also followed suit to denounce this "political instrumentalisation" stating that it is one of the most "glaring cases of political power over judicial power ever seen in modern Europe". 

Mr Galligani described it as shocking that "after years of attacks on Poland and Hungary on the rule of law", the European Commission is "deafeningly silent" with regards to Spain.