Windy day in Geneva but with pleasant temperatures. ‘Ah, the civilized summer’ admires the visitor. “No, here we get to 36ºC”, replies Marta Rovira. In first person. rooting.
Does the negotiation of the State budgets for 2023 represent the last chance for ERC to achieve any of its demands?
There will be no thaw until there are no results on the table, ERC has finished political credit and no longer trusts. A complicated autumn is coming and we are willing to negotiate, but we want visible results at the negotiating table. Because that is the reason why we support the investiture of Pedro Sánchez.
Has the ERC tone lowered in the demand for information about the ‘Catalangate’?
No. But as much as we scream, our demands will not be met. We can pressure, politically and judicially. We will make ‘Catalangate’ an international issue.
Is ERC interested, also thinking of the Government, that Pedro Sánchez last until January 2024?
ERC has not signed a blank check with Sánchez. The excuse that if he does not govern, the PP and Vox will come, does not serve us. The PSOE-UP government is not leading what it committed to at the beginning of the legislature. I don’t want to make populism, but if the most progressive government in history does not advance in social issues and in the Catalan conflict, what difference is there between a leftist government and one of PP-Vox?
But it is difficult to think that with the PP there will be a negotiating table with the Generalitat…
That is why we are investing in this legislature, because, probably, we are running out of time.
“The PSOE doesn’t do anything, the PSOE is forced to do it,” Rufián said in his day. Do you have hope that in this stage that is now opening there will be a change?
We would like a government, not only from the PSOE, but also from the UP, with political conviction. And we only see an absolute self-consciousness before the PP and the Spanish nationalism that freezes them. We see a lot of electoral calculation. They do not combat Catalanophobia, they go to elections embarrassed for sitting at a table with the Generalitat.
Between self-determination and the end of ‘repression’ it seems more feasible to advance in the latter field.
We need equal conditions to be able to enter into the substantive part of the negotiation, which is political and must respond to this majority of Catalans who want to vote in a referendum on the independence of Catalonia. The negotiation is now asymmetric.
Is it necessary to recover all those persecuted by 1-O before facing a new attack on the State?
It is not a precondition, it is a condition that the State must fulfill if it wants to respect human rights and democracy.
“We are not Convergència, nor do we want to be. I am from ERC because the CiU way of governing has not convinced me”
Do you already have a plan b?
We are preparing for all scenarios, especially the worst. Let there be no results, let there be a PP-Vox majority…
What does the international community think about how the dialogue table is developing?
When the Government recognized that there was a conflict between Catalonia and Spain, it automatically enabled us as an interlocutor and many who did not dare before now turn to us. Because it has opened the door to talk to both sides. Political repression is very frowned upon in the international community, something that we do not value. I believe that the internationalization of negotiation and repression will help us resolve the political conflict.
Has the ERC scheme of separating regional negotiation (transfers, investments) from the political table expired?
The negotiation process is between governments. The negotiation of the PGE is of ERC. And if it is true that ERC, to support the PGE requires results at the table. Because it is the center of all our politics in Spanish politics. We know that the PSOE is saying that we are not reliable partners. And he says it because they work with old mental schemes: we are not Convergència, nor do we want to be. I am from ERC because the CiU way of governing has not convinced me. Although we may share some political objectives. For ERC, ‘peix al cove’ has never been an option. That’s why they don’t understand us. That is why we see in the PGE an opportunity to press for the priority, the table. We will not use our votes in Congress to lower the political agenda, to return to the ‘peix al cove’, for a plate of lentils.
Question in the abstract. At what point should a President of Parliament with an open court case resign?
As secretary general of the ERC, if I came across this situation of a case of alleged corruption, I would ask that abstract president of the Chamber to step aside while the judicial process lasted.
And now specifically, is Laura Borràs already late for the next step?
Can the general secretary of the ERC ask Borràs to do a, boc? No. Of course, they cannot demand that, when the time comes, we do a, b or c. We have all the legitimacy to position ourselves on what they decide.
“For the PSC to be part of that governance, it must want to represent that 70-80% of Catalan society that believes that the conflict is resolved by voting”
Can the renewal of the CCMA or the Catalan law be agreed with the PSC, but not the budgets?
They are different things. In the CCMA it was obligatory to come to an understanding with the PSC. In Catalan, without the PSC, the consensus would have taken a step backwards. The problem, however, is not that. It is that old dynamics are maintained in the elites, because in Catalonia there has been a bipartisanship (CiU-PSC). That is why we strategically seek the support of the CUP and the ‘comuns’, to break with that bipartisanship. And about the budgets…. Would we understand each other with the PSC? What are your two big projects? The Olympic Games, without having previously worked on it with other communities, and the expansion of the El Prat airport. Two unilateral projects of the Government, with the PSC of palmero
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We are very far from an interbloc government, for and against the referendum.
I don’t see that there are blocs because the referendum includes yes and no. For the PSC to be part of that governance, it must want to represent that 70-80% of Catalan society that believes that the conflict is resolved by voting.