The cornerstone of En Comú Podem in the face of these elections is its ability to contribute votes from Catalonia to Yolanda Díaz’s project and for this, the commons appeal to their service record in the legislature that is about to expire. “Since we have been in the Government, we have begun to comply with Catalonia,” summed up the president of the parliamentary group, Jéssica Albiach. And “we have seen it with the dejudicialization -of politics-, with Rodalies” and with the tangible fact that with the coalition government “there is a more stable, empathetic and profitable relationship with Catalonia.”
Already entering the final stretch of the electoral campaign, the leader warned in a new edition of the Barcelona Tribuna organized by the Barcelonese Economic Society of Friends of the Country, that Catalonia “will not better face its great challenges with a PP and Vox government ” because “it will be a government against Catalonia”.
In fact, Albiach gave as examples the pacts that the right-wing and ultra-right formations are weaving after the municipal elections of 28-M, examples that make him conclude that an eventual government of PP and Vox will not bring “prosperity” or “freedom”, but “more tension”. And it is that in the autonomies where they are already governing, the two parties act “against everything that reminds them or sounds like Catalonia”, he said, referring to the consequences of the government agreements in the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands. . Therefore, let us be clear that a government of PP and Vox is a government against Catalonia”, unlike the current coalition Executive.
For this reason, the next elections are “a new opportunity” and, “if we want a strong Catalonia, we also need allies in the central government”, he opined, although in the PSOE, “our traveling companion”, he defined, “has many souls , many of them conservative” that he personified in the Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño. Albiach exemplified it with the ertes, the trans law, the updating of pensions or the repeal of the crime of sedition, measures in which the PSOE was reluctant but United We Can pressured for its final approval.
Faced with the “immobilist” soul of the PSOE and an ERC that “is making the wrong adversary when it points to Yolanda Díaz and not Vox and is making the wrong allies when it looks at JxCat”, Albiach swept home ensuring that “the leadership of Yolanda Díaz understands plurinationality like no one else”, which is “the basis for a prosperous and diverse State”, he assured.
Plurinationality is the axis on which the State’s relationship with its territories pivots, recognized by the Constitution, as recalled by the presenter of the event, Miquel Roca. And here the commons also have a “clear” bet. Beyond the latest controversies around the presence or not of the self-determination referendum in Sumar’s program, Albiach reaffirmed his commitment to a federal Spanish State against the “past and expired” autonomous model. This State would be “formed by different nations that freely decide to be part of this Spain” and with greater powers for the federated States.
“We want our language to be armored, the management of ports and airports, and that Catalonia be recognized as a nation. And we are convinced that we will end up seeing this in a vote in Congress,” he predicted.
Sumar is presented to the elections with star proposals such as the reduction of the working day to 37.5 hours or the so-called universal heritage, aimed at young people. Aware that this last approach was not understood correctly, perhaps because of the name with which she was baptized, Albiach defended it as a good formula to exploit young talent. “It is not a blank check”, but 20,000 euros that a young person can collect when he is 23 years old for a business or training project, but after being monitored for 5 years – from the age of 18 – in which an itinerary is worked out.
For Albiach, Catalonia “is not in decline”, but it does face great challenges, among which he cited the levels of poverty (20%) and social exclusion in Catalonia; the shortcomings of public health, education or the implementation of renewable energy. Faced with many of these challenges, the commons warn that “it is the time of the green economy”, in the face of “the attitude of the climate deniers of PP and Vox that would lead us to ruin”.
But this climate awareness also collides with the Socialists in Catalonia in areas such as the expansion of El Prat airport and the construction of the Ronda Nord of the B-40 between Sabadell, Terrassa and Catellar del Vallès. Albiach considered it perverse to establish the debate between environmentalism and progress because “we will not have progress if it is not green”, and in the case of the airport he warned that Barcelona no longer admits more tourism because “the tourists themselves already say that there are too many tourists when they come” and “expanding the airport goes in the opposite line to what they do in France or the United Kingdom”.
