Feijóo refuses to meet with Junts to address the amnesty that Puigdemont demands for an investiture

2023-09-05 15:04:15

Change of posture. The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has ruled out meeting with Junts per Catalunya after the conditions imposed by the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont for an investiture. The meeting would have the sole purpose of addressing the amnesty and the other conditions that Puigdemont, a fugitive from Justice, has transferred this Tuesday.

At a press conference in Congress, after meeting with Santiago Abascal, Feijóo has said that he prefers to avoid the meeting with JxCat if the approach is amnesty, although he remains willing to discuss “if there are nuances in this regard.” The PP leader links his change of position with Puigdemont’s explicit request and has denied that it is due to “concern” within his party. Feijóo says that he has not noticed internal tensions in the PP despite the fact that the popular Catalan, Alejandro Fernández, was directly opposed to the dialogue with JxCat from the beginning.

Faced with Puigdemont’s “impossible” demands for amnesty or referendum, Feijóo has again proposed a governance agreement to the PSOE secretary general, Pedro Sánchez, who has been warned that it is “implantable” to agree with JxCat.

Feijóo only sees two paths viable

According to the investiture candidate, once Puigdemont’s requirements are known, the only two “paths” are an agreement between the national parties for “equality, democracy or the separation of powers” or a blockade and an electoral repetition. The third option, “an agreement under these conditions”, would be, in his opinion, “a historical nonsense, which violates the rights of the Spaniards and not even Pedro Sánchez should be able to carry it out”.

“I neither can nor want to pay that price that Puigdemont has set to be president of the next Government of Spain, I would like Sánchez to say the same if it were possible today,” he stressed. According to Feijóo, the PP will come to the Government “sooner or later” defending equality between Spaniards and not through a new process. For this reason, he will receive his investiture with “honor”, since he is not subject to “auctions” or “blackmail”.

PP and Vox meet

The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, has endorsed his support for the investiture of the PP president with the aim of avoiding the “coup” to national unity that Pedro Sánchez will perpetrate if he continues in La Moncloa thanks to the support of Carles’ party Puigdemont.

After meeting with Feijóo, Abascal has expressed his “most radical opposition” to Puigdemont’s requests to support an investiture in the Government of Spain and has criticized that the “separatists” who staged the “coup against the Constitution” on October 1, 2017 in Catalonia” today they intend to condition the Government of Spain”.

Abascal has also said that Spain is experiencing a moment of “national and democratic exception” and, for this reason, both Vox and the PP see “it is essential to put the interests of Spain before any type of party consideration.” “I have transferred to Feijóo that Vox will support his investiture, solely as an alternative to the embarrassment of seeing the separatist parties auction off the nation in an impudent manner to the perplexity of all Spaniards,” he stressed.