2023-09-06 02:12:44
In his speech delivered yesterday in Brussels, Carles Puigdemont alluded up to five times to the possibility of a repeat election. The former president is aware that he has the fate of Spanish politics in his hands and he exploits that power to the maximum to try to achieve all his demands, although he does not want to blow up all the bridges immediately because there is a lot of room to negotiate until the end of November and For this reason, he avoided setting ultimatums and time limits.
«Spain has a complex resolution dilemma. Either repeat elections or agree with a party that maintains the legitimacy of 1-O and that has not renounced nor will it renounce unilateralism, “said Puigdemont, delving into that idea throughout his speech. The former president pushed Catalonia to the limit in 2018 and left autonomy one week before an electoral repetition (finally, Quim Torra was sworn in) and it does not seem that his pulse is going to tremble to do it with Spain. In fact, pushing Sánchez to the limit, he is aware that it is the only way to force him to move and give in to his requests.
At the moment, after his conference yesterday, a blanket of fog has remained that prevents us from really seeing the scope of all his demands. Because? Because he avoided setting time limits for the agreements. However, everything indicates that his intention is to draw up a negotiation in two phases: in the first, he requires a series of preconditions that would be linked to the investiture; and, in the second, it would take place throughout the entire legislature. In this sense, he outlined four prior conditions that must be met, which would be linked to the investiture: the first is “respect for the democratic legitimacy of the independence movement”, in reference to the fact that the alleged espionage of the independence leaders must be ended (Junts has called for the creation of an investigative commission in Congress); the second is to abandon the judicial process against the independence movement, since, according to what he said, “1-O was not a crime” (this could be channeled through the amnesty that is already quite smoothed); The third is the creation of a mechanism for “mediation and verification” of the agreements to avoid non-compliance and, on this point, he assured that the first time that it allows verifying whether the Government complies or not is that on September 19 in a meeting of the European Affairs ministers make Catalan official, although it is still unknown if this will be possible or will remain in a mere first debate (the unanimity of the 27 is required); and, the fourth is to set international treaties on human rights as the only limits for negotiation, that is, to give room to exceed the limits of the Constitution.
Of these four prerequisites, the most sensitive of all is, without a doubt, the one related to the amnesty, since there are those who interpret that it is a requirement prior to the investiture and there are those who think otherwise. Puigdemont left it up in the air. The truth is that if it has to be approved before the inauguration, there are a little less than three months to process it in Congress: there is time, since the reform of the Penal Code to suppress sedition took only one month.
In addition to the amnesty, Puigdemont also appealed to the Government’s breaches in economic and social matters and demanded more powers (for example, in the area of migration). Although, he wanted to warn that “nobody be fooled” because neither amnesty nor anything else is going to replace the demand for “national recognition and the right to self-determination.” «Only an agreed referendum could replace the political mandate of 1-O. There are no constitutional impediments to holding this referendum,” said Puigdemont, without setting a deadline to reach an agreement for this referendum, which allows Sánchez to start the legislature without having agreed on anything in this matter. “If there is an agreement, it must be a historic agreement,” Puigdemont stressed, aware that he has fed his image of a tough politician with the State so much that now he is going to have to carefully measure what he agrees to not disappoint his most faithful .
Puigdemont, in addition to outlining his demands, also wanted to record his discomfort with the PSOE and Sumar because he believes that they have cornered his party for the last six years and have remembered Junts now that they need it. In this sense, he opted for a hard tone and warned that the distance between him and the two leftist forces is enormous. What’s more, he also wanted to remember how two months ago, PSOE and Sumar added their votes to the PP to unseat the winner of the municipal elections in Barcelona, Xavier Trias.
Puigdemont’s words complicate the possibilities of the PSOE for the investiture of Sánchez and, above all, they leave a bad place for Yolanda Díaz because she had met with Puigdemont 24 hours earlier with the intention of softening her speech yesterday. In this sense, the vice president was unable to lower the tone of the former president, who has been in Belgium for almost six years without being accountable before the Spanish Justice.
Junts is essential for the PSOE: without them, the PP has more parliamentary support.
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