The PSC has not liked the condition that the Government put on Tuesday to unblock the signing of the agreement with the central government to execute the B-40, a condition that implies the transfer of more than 900 million euros for infrastructures that, according to the Executive of Pere Aragonès, are still owed to Catalonia. The Catalan socialists insist that the Government must comply with the pact signed via agreement on the Generalitat’s budget for this year and that it is already months behind schedule.
The president of the Congress of Deputies and head of the list of the Catalan formation for Barcelona, ??Meritxell Batet, has been the one who has expressed the discomfort of her party demanding that the Government “has to comply with the agreements to which it commits”, and in instead of situating new conditions “it should concentrate on the infrastructures that Catalonia needs and that it has been neglecting for a long time.”
For the Socialists, the B-40 is “a good example”, but also the expansion of the desalination plants or the commitment to renewable energy. That is why Batet has urged the ERC Government to focus on “its powers” and on “being effective” because “Catalonia has been governed too badly for a long time.”
The Socialists agree on the implementation agreement. This was expressed recently by the Minister of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez. The Government does not deny that the text of the agreement is practically closed, in which the Government’s reluctance has been smoothed out, which were basically concentrated on two aspects: on the one hand, eliminating the wording of the expression “maximum capacity” for the road and the financing, which had to be borne by the State regardless of the third additional provision.
Those of Salvador Illa have worked to comply with these demands that the Government finally ended up accepting and with the replacement of the Minister of Territory, Juli Fernàndez -totally opposed to the construction of the highway- the agreement does not encounter any more obstacles than the date of signing.
The signature delay is evident but the PSC avoids publicly expressing its anger at the delay for the good of the project, and they only appeal to the credibility of the president to comply with the agreement. But in the party they do not hide their weariness, which is accompanied by the denunciation of the fact that “in practically a decade they have been left aside” the powers in terms of infrastructure. If, one month before the municipal elections, Illa expected the agreement to be signed before the appointment with the polls and it was not like that, they fear that with 23-J and the new demand of the Government the same thing will happen again.
Facing the general elections, the PSC endorses, how could it be otherwise, the campaign arguments that the Prime Minister and PSOE candidate for re-election, Pedro Sánchez, is already deploying, when he places a dichotomy between him and the “regression in terms of rights and freedoms” that in his opinion represents his maximum opponent, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Batet has pointed out the social and economic spheres in which this setback can occur in the event that the leader of the PP governs (pensions, feminism, ecology, salaries…), among which he has also pointed out the Catalan question.
“I have no doubt that Catalonia is infinitely better, not a little better, than when the PP ruled, commented the candidate, who, in response to the statements by the ERC leader, Oriol Junqueras, warning that his formation will make his eventual support for a new inauguration of Sánchez, linking it to advances in self-determination and amnesty, has replied that in these elections only Sánchez or Feijóo can be presidents and that “it is clear what is best for us in economic and territorial social policy and coexistence ”.
Accompanied by the heads of the PSC list to Congress for Lleida (Montse Mínguez), Girona (Marc Lamuà) and Tarragona (Valle Mellado), Batet has been convinced that “the path opened by Pedro Sánchez and Salvador Illa has no turning back ”, but he has also warned that in the 23-J elections “we are risking a return to confrontation, to sterile fracture, to tension, which does not lead anywhere or bring any benefit to citizens”. For her part, in the PSC “we are committed to the coexistence and reconciliation of all Catalans and of Catalonia with the rest of Spain”, she remarked.
