“President Sánchez, opportunities must be taken advantage of when they occur, if they are passed over due to fear or inability, the consequences are never pleasant.” Former president Carles Puigdemont wanted to draw attention to the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, this Wednesday in the plenary session of the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, who has been disgraced by the non-compliance with the official status of Catalan in the community institutions.
The two leaders met for the first time in the European Parliament on the occasion of the intervention of the head of the central Executive to take stock of Spain’s rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, which comes to an end on December 31.
Puigdemont has warned the leader of the PSOE that unfulfilled promises lead to “distrust” with the European scenario as a pretext and backdrop, but in the minute that the former president, now an MEP, had to speak from the lectern, he has brought the water to his mill and has also denounced that he cannot use his mother tongue, Catalan, in the European institutions, as fellow MEP Clara Ponsatí had done in her previous intervention.
The leader of Junts spoke in Spanish, as did the representative of Esquerra Jordi Solé, who in his subsequent appearance also made reference to the issue of Catalan. Although he passed very close to Sánchez, Puigdemont did not greet him or the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares. Solé, on the other hand, has shaken hands with the head of the central Executive, as other Spanish MEPs have done.
Pulling the thread of the promises at the beginning of the semester of the Spanish presidency and Sánchez’s “Europe of the people” slogan, the former president has warned Sánchez that “Europe’s problem has never been the promises” but rather their “failure to fulfill them.” , which leads to mistrust and can put even a project like that of the European Union at risk.
“I speak to you in your mother tongue but I cannot speak in mine. Millions of Europeans cannot exercise our fundamental rights in our own language. That Europe of the people that you had to defend during your presidency does not include us if we speak in Catalan. Our freedom of expression in this Chamber is worth less than yours,” lamented Puigdemont, who immediately afterwards, in a Spanish key and the agreements between Junts and PSOE, pointed out that “opportunities must be taken advantage of when they occur.”
Although Sánchez focused his speech today on the European issue, in the groups’ replies the Spanish national debate has been more present than Spain’s current presidency of the Council of the EU.
In this way, today’s debate has become in part a repetition of the one that took place a few weeks ago in Brussels on the amnesty at the request of the European People’s Party. As happened then, the MEPs who have intervened the most beyond the group leaders have been the Spanish, but even Manfred Weber, leader of the EPP, has focused his intervention on the amnesty and the agreement with Junts.
