2024-01-12 22:56:03
The transfer of immigration powers to the Generalitat dominates the political news. It is one of the Government’s agreements with Junts per Cat so that the pro-independence Catalan right would abstain from the royal omnibus and anti-crisis decrees. Socialist ministers avoid talking about ‘transfers’ to Catalonia for now. They replace it with ‘delegation of powers’. But Junts insists that this delegation of powers will be comprehensive.
Félix Bolaños, Minister of Justice and Presidency, has asserted that it is an agreement “by virtue of which an organic law will be promoted to be able to make this delegation of powers in matters of immigration.” For her part, the first vice president María Jesús Montero has highlighted the same: “It is a delegation of powers that is within the framework of 150.2 of our Constitution.” Ángel Torres, Minister of Territorial Policy, clarified that “in no case is it a transfer, it is a delegation of powers.”
The Executive tries to lower the expectations of Carles Puigdemont’s party, but the Catalan conservatives speak of a comprehensive transfer and therefore, the Generalitat could control the migratory flow in Catalonia. “Now we will see everything that can be transferred, which has to be the majority of everything the State is doing in terms of immigration,” explained Jordi Turull, general secretary of Junts per Cat, on Thursday.
Turull pointed out that the Generalitat must “be able to decide whether or not to expel repeat migrants.” “No mayor is satisfied that there are people in his town who have reoffended 210 times,” he alleged. The Executive defends that there is a long parliamentary journey ahead in this matter. It must become organic law.
The Catalan independence party wants to decide which immigrants can be in Catalonia and who cannot. Some leaders of other parties consider that Junts has xenophobic attitudes. In Sumar they state that they “do not know that content because there is no written paper.” Ernest Urtasun, Minister of Culture, has stressed that “in no case should we support certain xenophobic speeches.” Yolanda Díaz, second vice president and Minister of Labor, has argued that “respect for fundamental rights is crucial.”
The pact has been reached between PSOE and Junts, when Puigdemont’s party does not govern in Catalonia. The Government is in the hands of ERC, which lowers expectations regarding this delegation of powers. “The agreement is a declaration of intentions. It speaks of delegation of powers, which is not the same as the transfer of powers, there is a differential element. It is an issue that is in a very embryonic phase. It is an announcement,” he stated Raquel Sans, ERC spokesperson.
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