The President of the Generalitat considers that “it must be the year to give shape to the proposal for a clarity agreement”
The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, intends to achieve in 2023 a “great agreement in Catalonia” on the so-called clarity agreement, that is, on the self-determination referendum inspired by the experience of Canada that he defends.
Aragonès has taken advantage of the institutional Christmas speechbroadcast tonight by TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio, to underline that “2023 must be the year to give shape to the Catalan proposal for a clarity agreement”, an agreed referendum that he already raised last September during the Parliament’s general policy debate.
“In Catalan society there is a broad consensus on the need to resolve the conflict with the State by voting. For this reason, this 2023 the Generalitat will promote a debate, a great conversation, with the whole of society, to shape and visualize this consensus “, said the president from the Library of Catalonia, the place chosen this year for the institutional message.
Defend an homologous referendum
Aragonès has justified this approach “to visualize an agreement between us on when Catalonia should be able to exercise the right to decide again, on what conditions should vote again so that this time all parties feel included and everyone accepts the result”, he said.
The president has also detailed what this consensus would consist of: “A great agreement in Catalonia that offers us all the strength and all the internal legitimacy to be defended before the State as a country proposal. A great agreement in Catalonia that is explainable and comparable at the international level and that is scrupulously democratic because it seeks nothing other than to empower the citizenry”, she summed up.
“Dialogue is beginning to bear fruit”
Aragones, that after the out of together of the executive leads a Government now only supported by ERC, he has also taken stock in his speech of the negotiations with the State and has defended that “persevering is key to progress”.
“Today it is evident that the dialogue and negotiation to resolve the political conflict with the State is beginning to bear fruit. It was said that it was impossible to repeal sedition. It was said that it was impossible to modify the crime of embezzlement. And today the crime of sedition for which the political prisoners were sentenced no longer exists and a good part of the aspects of embezzlement that, by manipulating the current law, allowed the organization of the referendum on October 1 to be pursued, have been limited.” has highlighted.
In this line, Aragonès has concluded, sticking to the chest of those legal reforms agreed with the Government: “These steps forward improve the situation of the set of reprisals for October 1st. And above all, they are an essential step to move towards achieving the effects of the amnesty that allow a definitive end to all forms of repression”.
Ask to build a democratic path
Having verified these advances, Aragonès has claimed that, despite this, “now it is necessary to open a new phase of the negotiation and find a solution to the origin of the political conflict”.
“Until we give an answer, the political conflict will exist, and it is the responsibility of all the indicated parties, the Government of Catalonia and the State Government, to build a democratic path through dialogue, negotiation and agreement, a democratic path, which includes us all, to make it possible for the citizens of Catalonia decide the future of the country“, he stressed.
However, Aragonès did not refer in his speech to the so-called Dialogue Table nor if it should meet before the end of 2022.
Asks not to delay the decision on the Budgets
At the strictly Catalan level, Aragonès has also taken advantage of this speech to make a appeal to parliamentary groups to make it possible to approve the Generalitat’s budget for 2023.
“The bulk of the work is done. It only takes political will to make it possible. That is why I ask the groups with whom it has not yet been possible to reach an agreement on responsibility regarding citizenship and not to delay their decision any longer,” he said.
In this way, Aragonès, who recently sealed an agreement on the accounts with the commons, has implicitly referred to to the PSC and Juntsformations with which he also maintains contacts with the hope that they will join the budget consensus.
Aragonès has stressed that the budget “reinforces the health system with 1,000 million” Or that the accounts have been “agreed” with unions and employers, among other social actors.
Likewise, the president stressed that Catalonia continues to recover from the economic crisis caused by the covid, but that the war in Ukraine has caused an increase in the price of energy and the cost of living for Catalans this year.
“Faced with these important obstacles, from the Government we have reacted by reinforcing all public services with measures such as the improvement of the thermal social bonus and fundamental changes such as the free education stage of I2, the old P2 –the last year of kindergarten-“, he stressed, although he recalled that to help in this context, Catalonia needs to have tools such as a new budget for 2023.