Alone in the face of danger, the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has defended the amnesty in the Senate, the most hostile territory, as a result of the absolute majority of the PP, to the shared interests of his party, ERC, and the formations that support the coalition government of PSOE and Sumar. “They said it was impossible” and “overnight” it will be enacted, said the president, who has set as next steps the achievement of “unique” financing for Catalonia and the holding of an agreed referendum on independence.
Aragonès has intervened in the general commission of the Autonomous Communities, which has submitted to debate a report of the PP demodeling against the Amnesty law, whose suitability to resolve the political conflict in Catalonia, in the absence of the socialist regional presidents and representatives of the Government , has defended the president himself, who has faced the unanimous rejection of the six popular barons, with the Madrid-born Isabel Díaz Ayuso at the head, present.
Aware of the great expectation aroused by his announcement that he would go to the Senate to “troll” the PP, at a time that also coincides with the pre-campaign for the Catalan elections on May 12, Aragonès began his speech by recalling that “everything began with a question”, whether the citizens of Catalonia wanted to establish an independent state, that is, with the proposal of a referendum that, in their opinion, is “legal, possible and necessary to resolve the sovereignty conflict” with the Spanish state.
This “political issue”, the president recalled, was addressed by the Spanish government “through repression” in October 2017, at the zenith of the independence process, after which the intervention of the Generalitat and the sentences came. of the Supreme Court. “They told us that the amnesty was impossible,” said Aragonès, for whom, in the same way, those who today say that the referendum is also impossible, among whom he has pointed out the socialist leaders in Catalonia, Salvador Illa, and Spain , President Pedro Sánchez, will end up accepting it, because “making it easier for citizens to vote and exercise democracy can never be a crime.”
In this sense, Aragonès wanted to claim himself as a leader capable of defending Catalonia “where necessary” in the face of the “blows” and “mistreatment” that, in his opinion, he receives from the State, also from an economic point of view, with a financing system that places the third community in Spain in collections in 14th place when it comes to distributing resources. “None of you would accept it,” he stated before the regional presidents of the PP.
For the ERC candidate for re-election as president of the Generalitat, the amnesty will put an end to “the exiles”, in plural, a circumstance in which it has included, in addition to former president Carles Puigdemont and former councilor Toni Comín, the general secretary of ERC, Marta Rovira, and also Republican Ruben Wagensberg. “Nothing we did was a crime. It is necessary to put an end to unjust repression and repair much of the pain,” exclaimed Aragonès, who proposes opening after the amnesty “a new stage of negotiation to address the bottom of the conflict.”
“Catalonia does not understand the impossible,” said the president, who has reiterated his desire to “fully normalize the Catalan language” and has announced that the demand for a financing system in which the Government can manage and decide the taxes it Catalans pay will advance “in parallel” to the commitment to achieving a referendum. “Let Catalonia decide freely, without impositions,” he concluded, and announced his prediction: “We will win.”
After listening to all the regional presidents who have spoken, Aragonès has left the Senate. Without the possibility of intervening again in the Chamber, the president has made some statements to the media in which he has regretted “the hatred, contempt and lack of respect” that, in his opinion, has characterized the debate, and has celebrated as a victory the “good news” that the amnesty is a “reality.”
Regarding the harshness of the speech of the president of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, who has accused the president of the Generalitat of wanting to “make fun” of the Aragonese, the president has resorted to a poem by Antonio Machado about Castilla: “Wrapped in its rags , despises everything he ignores,” said the Catalan leader in response to the “screams” and “insults” that have disfigured the PP barons, while referring to the “lack of arguments” of his Madrid counterpart, Isabel. Díaz Ayuso, whom he has criticized for “manipulating” economic data to reject Catalonia’s claims to receive better financing.
