An amnesty law already stops in independence and the commitment to explore the possibility of a self-determination referendum, not the immediate green light for its hypothetical holding, are the main conditions raised today in Brussels by the former president of the Generalitat, Carles Puigdemont, so that Junts sits down to negotiate an eventual investiture as president of the Government of Pedro Sánchez or Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
“If there is an agreement, this has to be a historic agreement, a historic commitment like the one that no Spanish regime or government has been able to make a reality since the fall of Barcelona on September 11, 1714,” Puigdemont warned before detailing the requirements to sit down and negotiate their support with both the PSOE and the PP: the recognition of the political conflict in Catalonia, the abandonment of judicial channels through an amnesty law, the creation of a verification mechanism and, finally, accepting the international law as a limit to conversations.
Puigdemont has been firm in his political positions but has opened the door to agreements. In his opinion, there is no “alternative path to independence that can guarantee the respect and survival of Catalonia as a nation” because “all the evidence accumulated over the decades shows that it is not”, but “it would correspond to the Spanish political leaders refute this conclusion.” This must be done “not by way of promises and words, but by way of deeds”, he has raised.
“Today nothing suggests that the need for parliamentary support is enough to push them to a historic change” because they have not done so in “more obvious” situations but they have not ruled out that Sánchez (or Feijóo) are “doing out of necessity” , virtue”. Puigdemont has summarized in four points the conditions that must be met to sit down to negotiate “with guarantees” for their demands.
1- Recognition of the conflict and the democratic legitimacy of the independence movement. “Without the 2010 Constitutional Court ruling against the Statute, “nothing of what has happened in Catalonia since then can be understood,” Puigdemont stressed before criticizing the failure to comply with investment commitments” or the “criminalization” of the independence movement . “They consider us the second most important threat of the State, behind terrorism”, he lamented, to the point that “all the necessary actions are ordered to deactivate the independence movement”, among which he cited the espionage to which several would have been subjected. pro-independence leaders with computer programmers like Pegasus. “Based on this highly undemocratic decision, the Spanish State infiltrates and fabricates stagings to proceed with baseless arrests, with the aim of paralyzing and criminalizing citizen mobilization in favor of the independence of Catalonia.”
2- Complete and effective abandonment of the legal process, not “to forget” but to “do justice”. In Puigdemont’s opinion, today, this “is within the reach of the Spanish Parliament, through an amnesty law that includes the broad spectrum of repression that began before the consultation on November 9, 2014” and that he considers responsible both the government in office and the public prosecutor’s office and the state attorney’s office, although it has not been made clear if they hope that this hypothetical legislation is approved before the inauguration or if they would be satisfied with the presentation of the bill. In any case, “October 1 was not a criminal act,” Puigdemont has argued.
3- Creation of a mediation and verification mechanism for compliance with the agreements. Puigdemont has evoked on several occasions the absolute lack of trust between the parties (“When it comes to Spanish politics, all precautions are few”), hence the third condition that he has put on the table: “The creation of a mediation mechanism and verification that provides the guarantees of compliance and monitoring of the agreements that the two major Spanish political parties are not in a position to give us”, he said. Sources around him have evoked different international foundations, based in Switzerland or the United States, as possible guarantors of these agreements but they have not ruled out that he could be a Spanish personality.
4-Set as the only limits those defined by international agreements and treaties. That is, base conversations on international law on human rights (individual and collective) and fundamental freedoms.
Puigdemont has indeed put on the table the need to hold a self-determination referendum in Catalonia, since only a consultation of this type “agreed upon with the Spanish State could replace the political mandate of October 1” by which independence was proclaimed. But, in his new scheme, the commitment to such an initiative does not appear as an immediate condition to support an investiture but rather the agreement to explore its legal viability, about which in his opinion there are no doubts. “There are no constitutional impediments to organizing and holding this referendum; we just have to remember article 92 of the Constitution. What there is is a lack of political will to take it on, because if you want, you can.”
The lack of trust and the “deep distance” that separates their political projects explain the “enormous difficulty” of trying to channel in “a few weeks (…) “a negotiation that has been considered unnecessary for six years” but the moment Puigdemont has recognized that the current situation opens the door to reaching an agreement to seek this great agreement, even if from the outset the conditions are assumed “out of necessity and not out of conviction”, stated Puigdemont, who appeared in a conference room of a hotel in the neighborhood European from Brussels, supported by the senior staff of the JxCat group in Congress and other senior party officials, as well as supporters.
“We have not endured the position all these years to end up saving a legislature but to defend the order received from the citizens,” warned Puigdemont. Only when these preconditions are met will they be able to sit down to talk about pending material issues such as the “fiscal deficit of more than 20,000 million euros per year”, the situation of Rodalies, the powers and resources in terms of immigration, the lack of personnel health, changes in the minimum wage to take into account the cost of living”, access to housing and rentals, among others. These deficiencies are exacerbated, according to the former president, because “the Spanish Government never executes the approved budgets for Catalonia”, and due to “the chronic lack of investment”, which generates “absurdities”. These are material deficiencies that “autonomism or constitutionalism have not resolved”, have had an impact. they will be prepared to start negotiating a historic agreement if the preconditions are created that enable a possible serious, honest and ambitious negotiation process.
