The Junts per Catalunya parliamentary group has registered a motion this Thursday in which they propose to disapprove the Minister of Social Rights, Carles Campuzano, for having committed to building a geriatric residence in the municipality of Santa Coloma de Gremenet, whose mayoress is the socialist Núria Parlón, if ERC governs after the municipal elections next May.
As reported by the Junts spokesperson in Parliament, Mònica Sales, the group’s initiative derives from the “announced agreement” by the minister together with the ERC mayoral candidate, Gabriel Rufián, for the construction of the equipment, a promise that represents a “inadmissible partisan and electoral use” by the Government. “It supposes a null respect to the institutions that we are not going to tolerate”, according to Sales.
The Junts motion proposes to reprove the minister for “announcing in a party electoral act actions of the Department of Social Rights aimed at the construction of a new residence”, as well as “for not making effective, immediately, the appearance in parliamentary headquarters , despite the urgent request approved by this House”.
For Junts, these practices “are typical of a sectarian government” and they consider that the criteria that must be taken into account for the construction of new facilities “must be territorial and technical”, something that Minister Campuzano has “skipped” with his commitment along with Rufián, according to the spokeswoman.
Junts was the first parliamentary group to request the minister’s urgent appearance in Parliament, a request to which the rest of the opposition groups joined. In addition, in the plenary session this Wednesday, the president of the post-convergent parliamentary group, Albert Batet, directly demanded that the president disavow Campuzano for his promise, but the head of the Government refused, alleging that the words of the minister did not come out as such promise, as it did pray in a message on social networks from the ERC Twitter profile.
Aragonès’s argument has not convinced Junts, where they consider that the president “endorses this agreement” between Campuzano and the candidate Rufián. He is also not convinced by the fact that the minister has agreed to go to Parliament to explain the case, since said appearance will take place on April 24, when more than a month will have passed since his controversial words. “Too much time will have passed and, therefore, in no case is there a will to give explanations,” Sales said.
Campuzano had the opportunity to give an account of this controversy also this Tuesday, during a questioning of the PSC-Units on the residential model in Catalonia. The Socialists have also been very critical of the minister for the electoral promise in Santa Coloma de Gramenet and have demanded that the Government commit to building the residence in the municipality through an addendum to the current budget of between 5 and 6 million euros. .
The Socialists could join this initiative as they already did with the disapproval of the Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, the first and only leader of the ERC Government who has received parliamentary disavowal to date. It remains to be seen what his position will be in this regard, as well as that of En Comú Podem, the other partner with whom the Executive of Aragonès has approved the current budgets of the Generalitat.
