The first secretary of the PSC and leader of the opposition in Parliament, Salvador Illa, warned this Tuesday that “Catalonia must play a very active role of leadership and deep involvement” in the general elections on July 23. For this reason, “approaches of ‘we are going to block’ are throwing away the vote”, he said, referring to the call for independence, by the Consell de la República of former president Carles Puigdemont, to have enough strength after the elections to block the investment.
The Catalan socialist leader has also criticized the approach defended by ERC to “put a price” on the possible reissue of his support for an investiture of Pedro Sánchez as Prime Minister. “There are things that are priceless, such as the defense of rights, or forcefulness against sexist violence,” said the socialist leader, referring to the policies that Sánchez has defended from the Government.
“Politics is negotiation, but when priceless things are at stake, you don’t have to do mercantilism. Here we are not going to buy anything, we are going to defend a political model, some values. Either you are on one side or the other” , he stressed, alluding to the different models in Spain promoted by the PSOE and the PP.
Illa participated this Tuesday in an informative breakfast of Barcelona Tribuna, which was presented by Miquel Roca, president of the Barcelonesa Economic Society of Friends of the Country, and which was attended by the main board of the PSC, including former president José Montilla; the mayor of Barcelona, ??Jaume Collboni and the delegate of the State in the Consorcio de la Zona Franca, Pere Navarro, as well as the lawyer and ex-minister of the Interior of Junts Miquel Sàmper; the director of La Vanguardia, Jordi Juan, and personalities from the economic world.
Roca has praised the first secretary of the PSC that “he is a serene person”, with whom “you can disagree from the serenity” and has recalled his “exemplary behavior during the pandemic”, as Minister of Health.
Illa himself has alluded to the management of the pandemic, in his initial speech, to defend that the collaboration of the seventeen heads of Health in the autonomies, although it made decision-making difficult, also enriched it. At this point, he took the opportunity to defend the PSOE model of Spain, “a diverse Spain, which finds its wealth in its plurality and a more homogeneous Spain, cut by a pattern from Madrid”, in reference to the PP model.
And he has continued in his distinction of the two different models of Spain offered by socialists and popular: “A more open mentality, another more conservative. One more confident in its potential, another more amagategui. A Spain that sees multilingualism as a source of wealth and another Spain that sees it as a hindrance. A Spain that sees social justice as a value, and another that prioritizes growth by sacrificing social cohesion”. In reference to the policy regarding Catalonia, Illa has contrasted the PSOE model of “a Spain that prioritizes coexistence, and another the legal path”, of the PP.
It has also marked differences between the president of the Government and leader of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, and the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the first “with a career marked by daring, audacity and resilience”, while the second has a career “marked more classic politics, marked by doing things”. And he has concluded that “now a person is required with a little audacity, courage, this is not the time to conserve, to tie up”, he has assured.
Within the framework of Catalan politics, the leader of the PSC has once again extended his hand to ERC and Junts, which between the three add up to 108 deputies, to reach major agreements on five key issues for Catalonia, in terms of connectivity, health, financing , public administration reform and education. He has assured that there is no urgency, “nothing will collapse”, but he has issued a warning for the remaining year and a half or two years of the legislature: “Either we inflect it or Catalonia will lose weight.”
He has defended moving forward with agreements such as the expansion of the El Prat airport, which is part of the Budget pact between the ERC and the PSC, or the construction of the new Sabadell-Terrassa section of the B-40, infrastructure for the Generalitat and the Spanish Government They have finally reached an agreement. “I see too much concern about euphemisms, there is talk of the Ronda Nord, of B-40, but it is the Quart Cinturó, it will not be a bike lane, it is the continuation of a two plus two (lane) road that has to reach Terrassa “, he assured. ERC has defended that the B-40 will not be high capacity.
Regarding the expansion of the airport, Illa has assured that she trusts “in the word of the President of the Generalitat, and it is also signed” and has defended that there is still time until December to set up the commission, but has warned that “the world does not wait” . “It is one of the strategic decisions that must be made in Catalonia and we do not have to take it long,” he defended, since “once the decision is made, it will take an implementation time of ten to fifteen years.”