“Unlike the last legislature, in which Pedro Sánchez had stability guaranteed from the beginning, now it will have to be earned agreement by agreement, day by day. Without compliance, the legislature will have no path and will end up in the trash can of the history”. With that idea, that warning, that satisfaction, the leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, presented this Thursday the investiture and legislature agreement with the Socialist Party.
In an appearance without questions, Puigdemont has celebrated the position of strength of his group, has vindicated – before ERC – the importance of Junts in recent years and stressed that they neither assume “any crime nor ask for forgiveness.” For him, the agreement is not only that, but a new framework, a new scenario in which his vision is vindicated, his actions are endorsed and the Spanish State recognizes its errors and the need for a new approach now. onwards.
The place chosen for his intervention is not coincidental and is loaded with symbolism. A small room in the Press Club, in front of the Justus Lipsius building of the EU Council in the heart of the European quarter of Brussels. And the place where Puigdemont and his former advisors disembarked on July 31, 2017, after fleeing Spain, to announce their intentions at a press conference. While two hours earlier Santos Cerdá appeared alone before the media, he did so supported by his own people. In the front row, the party’s senior staff, deputies, MEPs and senators such as Albert Batet, Josep Rius, Josep Maria Cruset, Toni Comín or Marta Borras among others. Just a few hours after Jordi Turull and the socialist negotiator signed in a hotel on that same street.
“We are entering an unprecedented phase that we must know how to explore and exploit, a phase of recognition and ambition that will depend on us, on the capacity we have to implement what we have agreed. We have not set any other limit than the expressed will of the people of Catalonia. through the institution that legitimately represents it, the Parliament. It is the people who speak and approve and not the party that wins an election. The agreement says that the only limits are set by the Parliament,” Puigdemont has warned.
The PSOE has presented the agreement as one of the legislature, but Junts makes it clear that each support for each law, including the Budget, will be conditional on compliance with the pending agreements, from the negotiation on the self-determination referendum to taxation. Day to day. And that first of all, the international verification mechanism will have to be activated “before the end of November.”
This mechanism, of which not all the exact details are known yet, will be immediate. The meetings, so that Puigdemont himself can participate, “will not be in the territory of the Spanish State” and the verifier, rapporteur or mediator will have to be “international.” The names of its members have already been chosen, but “they must work with minimal pressure and exposure, so they must have little public prominence and great internal responsibility. I want to thank the different components of this mechanism, which will meet at the end of November, his willingness to help us, to contribute to the resolution of a historic conflict in a selfless way, from a deep and proven commitment to democracy, freedom, Europe and peace,” added the still MEP, who has no plans therefore his return in the short term.
After 10 days of conversations, constant exchange of roles, some theater and taking great care of the details, the negotiating teams of the PSOE and Junts have announced this Thursday an agreement that will allow the immediate processing of a law to amnesty the Catalan independence leaders. , and especially Carles Puigdemont, in exchange for guaranteeing the seven votes of nationalist deputies for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. The culmination of a surreal period, difficult to believe, that began in a small place next to the European institutions at the end of October 2017 and that now ends in exactly the same place, with a full stop, with the announcement, by a fugitive from Justice, from the pact to make the man who promised to put him in prison as president of Spain.
For Puigdemont it is a day of victory, like when he collected the MEP certificate or when the courts of different countries denied entry. In the face of clashes with all of Spain, but also internally in Catalonia. His intervention has been vindictive, full of contained rage. “To get here we have not had to turn the page, as some claimed. Nor assume that crimes had been committed. We do not need to apologize. We maintain our position, and it is from that position that we commit to a process of negotiation, not of mere dialogue, with all that this represents. As long as the negotiation lasts6 and progress is made, we will correspond to the commitments we have acquired,” he assured.
His reproaches to Esquerra, veiled but obvious, have been constant. I am happy to think that these conditions inspired others that today share what until a few weeks ago they despised or found unnecessary. It surely means that what we have been maintaining for years and that even forced us to leave the Government of Catalonia was not due to a lack of realism, nor to any refusal to engage in politics, nor to any hyperventilation. Maybe it also means that unfortunately we have lost four fundamental years,” he told them.
The announcement of the agreement that will allow the investiture next week was this morning, with a double call to the media separately, but the understanding was prior. On Wednesday night it was already taken for granted from Madrid and Barcelona, but the teams of Santos Cerdá, special envoy to Brussels for 10 days, and the former president of the Generalitat himself resisted confirmation. But in reality, as of a week ago it was just a matter of small details. Cerdá and the three people who have accompanied him since his trip, and who had barely left the Sofitel hotel in the Belgian capital, had taken the plane assuming that it would be something very quick, a matter of a day or two at most. But Junts has stretched the rope as much as he could.
Partly due to legal details, especially since the indictment a few days ago of Judge García Castejón. But also to construct a more epic story for his own people and Spanish public opinion in general, that of a tough, exhausting negotiation. And a broader narrative, in which a party that barely has 7% of the Catalan vote is in control, sets the pace, while the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, waits complacent.
“The agreement contains the amnesty law with the shared will of not leaving out anyone who has suffered persecution, in whatever form – criminal, economic, administrative -, for the mere contribution to the independence process of Catalonia. It is a way of returning to politics what belongs to politics. An amnesty that cannot exclude the victims of the dirty war that the Spanish State has been maintaining against the independence movement for years, with some known episodes and others that we will learn about through of the parliamentary commissions created to know the truth. Because the victims have, we have, the right to know the truth. We have the right not only to have the injustice of political persecution denounced by international organizations repaired, but also to ensure that this does not happen again. , or that if it happens, those persecuted by justice are responsible and not the victims,” he concluded.