It is not easy for a control session to be calm and placid during an electoral period. Even less if the Government has just been remodeled and changes have been made in three departments of the Generalitat, removing from circulation a minister who has been at the target of the opposition and the educational community for months. But it has been the hangover due to the post-electroal pacts of the municipal elections in May, the agreement between Esquerra and PSC in the Lleida and Tarragona councils, which has just heated up the atmosphere in the Parliament chamber, in the first plenary session that he directed the new president of the Chamber, Anna Erra, elected last Friday, and without Laura Borràs in the box.
On account of the agreements in the supra-municipal entities, the president of the Junts parliamentary group, Albert Batet, has demanded a rectification from president Pere Aragonès, and has implicitly suggested that he call early elections after reproaching him for talking about articulating a pro-independence common front from the Gothic Gallery of the Palau de la Generalitat – “where the big announcements are made”, Batet stressed – while negotiating with the PSC.
“There are presidents who have made decisions for less. Ask your party to rectify and make a deep reflection on whether it is necessary to endure the agony,” Batet highlighted. “Coherence is rewarded at the polls”, added the leader of JxCat, who has snapped at Aragonès that he is a “supervised and unauthorized president” of an “exhausted” Government because while he asks to “rebuild unity, his party does the opposite “. “We see that they are not trustworthy, that they always say one thing and do another here in Madrid”, he added to an Aragonès who has avoided the clash and has tried to be conciliatory by calling for collaboration in those places where they work in an entente, like the Barcelona City Council and not draw up the list of grievances between one and the other. “There are clear signs that we have to understand each other”, remarked the president, who referred to the election of Erra as president of Parliament just a few days ago.
However, the head of the Catalan Executive has started his reply, as could be expected, with the agreement of the Barcelona Provincial Council between JxCat and the PSC four years ago. “It is understood in the same way that you govern today in the Barcelona Provincial Council with the PSC”, he pointed out.
“President, how is it understood that while you are making this solemn announcement to rebuild the independent unit, you are negotiating and signing agreements in the Lleida and Tarragona councils with the PSC?”, questioned the post-convergent leader, who has emphasized that in both organizations there is a majority of the independence movement. “Is this your way of redoing the unit?” He insisted. “The pact in the councils is an agreement to clarify what their intentions are”, he has sentenced.
Regarding the control session, the president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, has complained about the treatment that the president has received. “Respect for the country’s institutions requires respect for the figure of the Generalitat’s presidency”, the Republican leader pointed out in relation to the labels that JxCat has endorsed Aragonès: “guardian” and “unauthorized”.
At today’s session, Junts and ERC had arrived with statements in which they exchanged accusations for having ignored the other and having prioritized the entente with the PSC, in addition to carrying a backpack full of pacts in municipalities that go in the opposite direction to the common front. that President Aragonès proposed just after the 28-M elections, after Junts had demanded a joint list for the generals as an antidote to the independence party abstention and as an incentive to mobilize the electorate. If the initiative of the head of the Catalan Executive, which, like that of JxCat, sought to mobilize the sovereign electorate and little else, was born in an agonizing situation, the pacts sealed in these last two weeks have ended up certifying his death and unearthing the hatchet. The pipe of peace was barely lit for a few hours.
The head of the opposition, Salvador Illa, a leading actor in the pacts of discord, has not referred to the agreement with the Republicans, and has extended his hand to the president for a “broad and long-term” pact in terms of education that the president has not seen with bad eyes. “The agreements, the broader, the better. We have to do it in many other areas. They are opportunities,” he replied. Likewise, the socialist leader has indicated that he hopes that the changes of ministers “will be more of a refocusing of policies and not just a change of names.”
The CUP has ignored the fight between JxCat and ERC and has reproached the Government for its roadmap by demanding a “180 degree turn” in the policies that Aragonès has rejected by assuring that then they would do what the extreme right does. The president has claimed that his government “stands up to the extreme right in Catalonia and throughout the state.”
The new councillors, who took office on Monday, took part in the control session, and there was no day of grace for them. David Mascort was already part of the Department of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda and has received criticism from the PSC; and it was Ester Capella’s turn to get involved with the Ronda del Vallès at the instance of the socialists. Anna Simó, who has avoided until the end of the month the monographic plenum on education that was supposed to start yesterday, was awaited at the entrance to the Parliament by a protest from the Platform for Interim Teachers of Catalonia.
After the control session, Aragonès reported to the plenary session on the remodeling of the Government, in a specific debate in which he detailed that his objective is to “strengthen” the Executive and “provide renewed energy to face the end of the mandate of the legislature”. Likewise, he stressed that the new head of Education, Simó, “will work to redo the complicity with the educational community.”
In turn, both Illa and Batet have agreed in pointing out that the Executive’s problem is the “weakness” of having only 33 deputies and in reproaching him for his management. “Finishing the legislature is not a matter of good intentions and will, but of making it viable” through agreements, warned the socialist leader, who has blamed the president for “lack of leadership” and “blows from the steering wheel.” For his part, Batet has warned that “governing a country with only 33 deputies has no route”, and has requested the head of the Minister of the Presidency, Laura Vilagrà, due to the chaos of the oppositions a few weeks ago. Also Jéssica Albiach, from the commons, and other spokespersons have delved into the weakness of the Government.
