The Minister of Foreign Affairs and the European Union, Meritxell Serret, assumes that she can be disqualified after the pending trial, which will begin this Wednesday, due to the referendum on October 1, 2017. Serret, who was the head of Agriculture at the time, contemplates “ absolutely” the disqualification “given the precedents”. The Prosecutor’s Office requests for the consellera 1 year of deprivation from the exercise of any public office and a fine of 12,000 euros for a crime of disobedience.
In statements to La 2 and Ràdio 4, Serret has acknowledged that he “is psyched up” for an unfavorable sentence that will force him to leave the Government. In October 2019, Santi Vila, Meritxell Borràs and Carles Mundó were also sentenced for disobedience. It is these precedents that make Serret think that the TSJC will be inclined to accept the thesis of the Prosecutor’s Office. In any case, he has remarked that he will not leave politics, since he can participate “in many ways and from many areas”
On the other hand, Serret has once again defended the Government’s tour of Latin America against criticism from the opposition, especially from Junts per Catalunya, whom he has accused of creating “interested controversies.” In this sense, he has recalled the meetings with five ministers, two former presidents and regional governments. “In 9 days we saw as many ministers as in the last 9 years,” Serret snapped, referring to the foreign action of the previous Executives, who with the process reduced their meetings at the highest level.
For the minister, the trip was “positive”, despite the fact that they had to cancel two meetings with the highest leaders of Uruguay and Colombia “for reasons of last minute agenda”, something that does not break, she believes, the “good relations” existing between the parties. Regarding the role of the Spanish embassies, Serret has assured that they “did not condition” the foreign action of the Government.
The ERC leader has also come up against the reproaches of Junts, who criticized recent statements by Marta Rovira, general secretary of the Republican party, in which she questioned the “legitimacy” of 1-O. Serret has highlighted the “value” of what was a “democratic expression”, but at the same time he has recognized that many people “did not feel questioned”. Precisely, based on the analysis of the events of 2017, Serret has defended that ERC has a “structured” proposal to set a course for the process and has appealed to Junts to present proposals “to contrast them”.
In recent days, Junts’ darts at ERC have multiplied, also due to the visit of MEPs in Madrid for the Pegasus case and the response that Aragonès gave to former minister Juan Ignacio Zoido, who justified the espionage due to an alleged link to Carles Puigdemont with Russia. The post-convergents considered the president’s reply lukewarm, but Serret considers that it was a “very dignified and courageous” intervention.
