The PDECat spokesman in Congress, Ferran Bel, announced this Wednesday that he will not stand in the general elections again and that he is leaving active institutional politics after 12 uninterrupted years in Las Cortes Generales, 8 in Congress and 4 in the Senate , and it has done so by warning the pro-sovereignty parties, especially ERC and Junts, of the “bump” that a PP government with the support of Vox would entail for Catalonia at a “moment of weakness”.
The Catalan deputy, who “without qualms” claimed its convergent origin, explained at a press conference in the Lower House that the decision, “very well thought out in recent months”, is “irrevocable” and that the situation as a whole of Spain and in Catalonia do not give him any incentive to reconsider it.
In this sense, the former mayor of Tortosa (Tarragona), who has admitted that he has delayed the announcement because the party asked him to, has lamented that the electoral scenario that arises in the general elections on July 23 is “very polarized” between the PSOE and the PP and that it can end a PP government with the support of Vox. A scenario that, in the opinion of the nationalist deputy, would be still “much worse” than that of the absolute majorities of the PP. A scenario, he has insisted, that catches Catalonia at a “moment of weakness.”
In this way, Bel has exposed that the Catalan-based parties, alluding to Esquerra and Junts, instead of preparing for the stake that he has described, they are only carrying out a “very short-term” policy with “stabbing in the back” between each other. others “without being aware of what we are playing as a country”. On this point, the PDECat spokesman has described the situation as a Government “in an extreme minority” and an opposition that only plans to bring down the government. “We should be united (fent pinya) and we are seeing the opposite with the municipal agreements”, he has summed up.
In this context, the Catalan politician has recognized that in such a polarized scenario it is “difficult” for the proposals “of centrality, agreements and vision of the country” offered by his party to fit, but he has shown his hope that his colleagues come ” make them understand that at a time of polarization at the state and national level this leads nowhere”.
For the rest, Bel has vindicated the work carried out over the last twelve years, first with CiU and later with PDECat, and especially in the last legislature in which his formation, heir to Convergència, has been key to the approval of various initiatives government legislation. “I am leaving after a legislature in which we have felt very useful and in which arithmetic has allowed us to incorporate our proposals into many initiatives, with thousands of amendments”, he highlighted.
After the divorce between Junts and PDECat, in 2020, the Junts per Catalunya parliamentary group broke up in Congress, with four deputies from Junts and four from PDECat. Bel held the position of spokesman for the latter within the plural group of the Lower House and established a pact strategy without renouncing his pro-independence profile.
Contrary to what Junts has done, the PDECat has reached agreements with the Executive of the PSOE and Unidas Podemos for the approval of the general state budget and the labor reform, as well as the declaration of the state of alarm during the pandemic and a good part of the initiatives of the Government to combat the effects of the crisis and the War in Ukraine.
