The CUP does not separate the national agenda from the social one. They go bracing. It is the circumstance that Laia Estrada, number one of the party in the elections to the Parliament on May 12, assures that it occurred in the legislature that culminated with the referendum on October 1, 2017. Taking that model as a reference, the anti-capitalist has demanded this morning in a press conference organized by the ACN to provide the Parliament of Catalonia with “the sovereignty” that led to 1-O. And although in their program (yet to be published) they do not indicate a date for a hypothetical referendum, the head of the CUP list has indicated that she would be willing to set one if it is used as a “tool of confrontation with the State.” .
In any case, the woman from Cupera has rather referred to the intense years of the process to denounce that, in her opinion, Catalan politics is today subordinated to Madrid. He has blamed ERC and Junts for this. “We need the focus of Catalan politics to stop being in Madrid and return to Barcelona,” Estrada stated.
“We arrived at 1-O approving many ambitious laws in the social, environmental, feminist, etc. fields. That was legislating in favor of the people and deploying the powers to the maximum to go further,” Estrada clarified. Currently, the woman from Cupera believes that it is necessary to create a plan to implement a law against climate change, promote public energy, put a stop to tourist overcrowding, or implement universal basic income, for example.
“We must recover the initiative and make policies here,” he demanded. That inevitably means, Estrada said, that both ERC and Junts recover dialogue with the CUP. “When we negotiated with the CUP, progress was made. On the other hand, with the negotiation carried out between the rest of the pro-independence parties and the PSOE there has been a setback, he has stated.
Estrada has not put red lines to any investiture pact or negotiation with ERC or Junts, nor with the commons. For all of them, the only condition is that they be willing to advance the national agenda (the path towards independence) and the social agenda in parallel. What he has ruled out is an understanding with the PSC led by Salvador Illa, since, as he has said, it is a party that denies self-determination and that defends “macroprojects and macroevents in an unapologetic way.” “A formation that has not made amends to that PSOE that has been behind the espionage of its government partners (…). It is the most right-wing and Spanish-oriented PSC in history; “It has more to do with Albert Rivera than with Pasqual Maragall,” he denounced.
For the Cupera, a possible sovereigntist coalition after May 12 has to “go beyond the limits set by the PSOE.” Estrada has stressed that until now he has seen the PSC determining the political agenda “following closely what the employers’ association dictated”, a Junts that is not different from the PSC, and ERC incapable of setting the agenda.
In this way, proposals such as Pere Aragonès’ financing proposal, according to Estrada, are singular in “going back 10 years” so that they also deny it. Independence is the only way to ensure that Catalonia manages 100% of its resources, he has asserted. And requesting a referendum through article 92 of the Constitution is also “old screen.” Even so, Estrada has not set a date for a referendum, because he believes that first the sovereigntist formations should agree to recover their own national and social agendas.
