The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, got involved this Tuesday in a discussion with the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) over the futility of making effective the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (DUI) derived from the 1-O referendum as yesterday he claimed its president, Dolors Feliu, in the speech that closed the Diada demonstration that brought together some 115,000 people in the Plaza de España in Barcelona.
“It would be of no use right now” if it is not accompanied by international recognition, the president alleged in an interview on Catalunya Ràdio, an argument that has been immediately refuted by Feliu herself in interviews on Ràdio 4 and RAC1. This international recognition, the independence leader has pointed out, would come when Catalonia “recognizes itself as independent.”
“It is not a question of proclaiming it and that’s it,” insisted Aragonès, who has also rejected the elections that Feliu demanded yesterday if the independence parties and specifically the Government are not capable of assuming the 1-O mandate. With the dilemma “elections or independence” the president of the ANC concluded her speech directed above all to ERC and Junts, to whom she warned that any pact with the PSOE that is not to achieve independence only serves to “whitewash the State.” Spanish”.
“Well, independence, which is what we are working for,” the Catalan president chose in the face of the dilemma posed, although he warned that this “is not done just by wanting it very much.” “We can go out on the balcony 15 times,” he said ironically,
Aragonès has maintained that precisely in 2017 with 1-O the limitations of a unilateral declaration were “visualized”, while now he believes that there is an opportunity to negotiate with the Government. And he has opted to “establish a mechanism together that allows the next time the result is voted on to be recognized by the international community.” “If not, it will be very difficult,” he added.
Asked on several occasions how independence is made effective, Feliu has stated that “no one can guarantee anything,” and that what must be done is “achieve” independence and “face its consequences.” “International recognition will come when Catalonia recognizes itself”, she stressed.
On how resources, border control, taxes and the entire structure of a new state would be managed – assuming that Spain could reapply in 155 -, Feliu has argued that “all states before were nations that were not , and each one has walked with what he had.”
Regarding the ANC’s proposal to promote a civic list in the next Catalan elections, which also occupied part of Dolors Feliu’s speech yesterday, the president has recognized that any citizen is free to stand for election, although he has expressed his doubts about its convenience: “I don’t know if what is best for the independence movement is to increase the number of candidates.”
In this regard, Feliu believes that the list is “necessary”, because there is a “number of votes that have been lost” by the independence movement, alluding to the results of the municipal elections of March 28 and the general elections of March 23. J, and agreed with Aragonès that everyone has the “right” to stand for election: “We don’t need anyone’s permission,” he concluded.
The Government spokesperson, Patrícia Plaja, also referred to this issue in the press conference after the Consell Executiu, when she expressed surprise at “the change of course of the entity”, since “the essence of the ANC has not been never to do politics from within the institutions”, but rather to promote the independence movement. In addition, she has pointed out that it could be an opportunity to see what support the path championed by the association led by Dolors Feliu has.
“We must deepen the negotiation strategy to achieve an agreed referendum,” Plaja insisted while reiterating that a DUI “is of no use.”
So in the face of the rejection and doubts that the negotiation generates in the ANC, the Catalan Executive, as well as Esquerra and Junts, continue to bet on the negotiated route. For the Government, yesterday’s demonstration represented a “very powerful image of unity that demonstrates the strength of the independence movement and the need for cohesion and coming out together” to achieve the goal of independence. “The people who took to the streets did so to demand independence” and this goes “through the self-determination referendum,” Plaja has argued.
But the Catalan Cabinet does not plan to leave dialogue aside to achieve it, since it considers that today, thanks to parliamentary arithmetic, “the conditions exist more than ever to advance the amnesty, self-determination and well-being of the citizenship”.
In any case, the Government considers that coordination and cohesion would be necessary, which, although the ANC did not claim, Cultural Omnium or the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI) did. And a lot of ERC. For the Catalan Executive, Esquerra and Junts are “doomed to come to an understanding” in order to move forward in the negotiation.
