The president of the regional government of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès, believes that a referendum on the region’s independence in the next four years, during the new Spanish legislature, “depends on political will” and that this is “the fundamental question” is.
“A referendum on the independence of Catalonia in the next four years depends on the political will,” Aragonès said during a meeting with journalists from the foreign press, including Lusa, in Barcelona on Saturday evening. the day of the region (the Day of).
Pere Aragonès is president of the regional government (the Generalitat) and is one of the leaders of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), one of the independence parties on which socialist Pedro Sánchez depends to be reappointed as prime minister by the Spanish parliament. after the July 23 elections.
The President of the Generalitat stated that “the resolution of the political conflict between Catalonia and the Spanish State” should be possible in the next four years, admitting three scenarios: a referendum, “establishing the conditions for a referendum or “an agreement between the parties to address this issue.”
Like the other major Catalan independence party, Together for Catalonia (JxCat), owned by former president of the regional government Carles Puigdemont, Aragonès and the ERC are demanding amnesty for separatists convicted or accused by the courts due to trials related to attempts to self-determination. of the region since 2014.
However, that is not ‘the starting point’, Aragonès emphasized.
“The conflict between Catalonia and Spain is not about amnesty, amnesty is the solution to one of the consequences of the conflict, repression. The fundamental conflict is that in Catalonia there is a broad majority that wants to exercise the right to decide and vote. a referendum on whether Catalonia should be an independent state or not. And this is the fundamental question,” he claimed.
In the Spanish elections of July 23, the independents lost votes and deputies, but the “parliamentary arithmetic” gave them “strength”, in the words of Aragonès, because Pedro Sánchez and the Socialist Party (PSOE) would return to take over the government of Spain to lead. the country will necessarily have to count on the positive votes of all deputies of the Catalan (and Basque) separatist forces.
“It is an opportunity to open a second phase of the political negotiation process that we started four years ago,” said the President of the Generalitat, referring to the “dialogue table” opened between the regional and national executive, after the ERC decided already made this possible when the last Sánchez government abstained (which Puigdemont’s JxCat did not).
The last Spanish legislature pardoned Catalan separatists imprisoned over the 2017 unilateral declaration of independence and removed the crime of sedition from the Criminal Code, for which independentists were convicted and others yet to be tried were accused, such as Puigdemont, who has lived in Belgium since 2017 to escape justice in Spain.
Still during the meeting with the foreign press, Aragonès stressed that the new phase of negotiations with the Spanish government “must be preceded by the adoption of an amnesty law that will allow both parties to be on an equal footing in these negotiations, from a legal point of view. believes that there is no question of continued repression, but a threat of repression.”
“But from now on, the fundamental issue will have to be addressed,” he reiterated, stressing that there is a majority of Catalans who want to express themselves in a referendum, both supporters of independence and opponents of leaving the region from Spain.
Polls show that around 77% of Catalans support holding a referendum, including voters opposed to the region’s independence.
According to the same surveys, the share of those in favor of Catalonia’s independence is less than 50%.
Source: DN
