The ‘president’ of the Generalitat, Pere Aragones, has already set the bases for a second phase of negotiation with the State. The first stage, the dejudicialization of the ‘procés’should be closed with the amnesty that ERC and Junts are negotiating with the PSOE for the investiture of Pedro Sanchez. The second, much more complex, will be that of self-determinationinsisted the head of the Government, who has called on sovereignty to join forces so that Catalans vote “freely” on the independence.
“We have the opportunity to resolve the sovereignty conflict with the State. Now is the time“, he blurted out during the institutional message on the occasion of the Diada from the headquarters of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, in the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona. “Firmness, negotiation and democracy,” he prescribed to “definitely overcome repression and establish the bases for Catalonia can decide without any limit what their political future has to be”.
This is how it was pronounced on the eve of an Onze de Setembre marked by the negotiations for the re-election of Sánchez in Moncloa after the 23-J elections, which made ERC and Junts essential for the socialist candidate to remain in the Government. Given the lack of coordination between both forces, Aragonès has once again called for unity to take advantage of the fact that Catalonia “has the key to the governability of the State” and has reviewed the conditions for the PSOE.
The amnesty“as a guarantee that no one else will go to prison and that the ‘exiles’ will return free”, and the transfer of Rodalies and the end of the fiscal deficit -which the Government estimates at 20,000 million euros- as “immediate improvement of the welfare state.” All of this, as a prior step to the beginning of a new stage of dialogue that, in his opinion, must be “focused solely and exclusively on the substance of the conflict” so that “the Government and the Generalitat agree on how to respond to the majority will of the citizens of Catalonia to decide by voting what the political future of the country should be.
Because putting an end to the judicial cases of 9-N and the demonstrations after the 1-O ruling, he pointed out, is an “indispensable” condition to begin a negotiation “on an equal footing.” “But, amnesty, by itself, does not resolve the conflict of sovereignty with the State. Catalonia wants to vote freely on independence, and Until the State responds to this democratic demand, the conflict will exist“, has warned.
To seek a shared strategy within the independence movement, the ‘president’ has once again put on the table the clarity agreementa proposal that will come to light this September when the experts complete the Government’s task of proposing how an agreed referendum can be accommodated.
“We can do it. Four years ago, in a situation similar to the current one, we managed to get the prisoners out of prison. And today, with the strength we have as a country, we have to make amnesty possible. We have to make an immediate improvement of the well-being of the citizens and we have to make it possible to give new impetus to the negotiation with the State to establish the bases for Catalonia to vote”, he summarized.
The boost to Catalan
Aragonès has stressed that Catalonia is about to reach eight million people, being “the most plural and diverse that has ever existed”, and highlighting the value of Catalan as a “common language, an element of collective identification and expression of one’s own culture “in constant construction with contributions from all sides, through the construction of a country of rights and freedoms, with opportunities for all.”
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In this sense, he has encouraged giving a “boost” to Catalan, remembering that steps such as official status in the European Parliament and the use in Congress of Deputies “They are very important and represent a great advance towards the national recognition of Catalonia.” But it is not enough, he has said: “We have the historical responsibility to keep the language alive and we will only do so if we all come together to talk about it, use it normally in all areas, without fear, without shame” as a tool of social cohesion.
At the beginning of the message, Aragonès wanted to send a few words of “support, affection and solidarity” to Morocco due to the impact of the devastating earthquake that shocks the country. “I am convinced that once again the people of Catalonia will once again show their solidarity with the people affected by humanitarian catastrophes,” he concluded.