Editorial, 30August2022
Jordi Turull and Laura Borràs during the press conference at the headquarters of Junts per Catalunya in Girona.
Pere Duran / NORD MEDIA
The secretary general of Junts per Catalunya, Jordi Turull, is absolutely right when he says that the relationship with his ERC partners has reached a limit situation. “We can’t go on like this,” he said yesterday after his party’s executive and called for an agreement to be reached with the Republicans before the general policy debate to be held in a month’s time in Parliament. Turull’s ultimatum was polite: “We will put all our generosity, all our good attitude and all our effort into liking each other again”, but the abysmal distance that separates the two formations, widened conscientiously over many years, does not seem likely to be reversed in a month, or even a year.
At the core are two totally divergent strategies and the traditional struggle for the supremacy of independence. There is no need to think about it any further. Esquerra remains faithful to a risky strategy, which time will tell whether it is right or not, based on trying to reach a consensus in negotiations with the central government, which means renouncing any policy of confrontation with the state. Junts, on the other hand, continues with the rhetoric of the procès-war and believes that the path of “tactical autonomism” – as Turull defined Esquerra’s policy – is going nowhere. To add fuel to the fire, there is the controversial figure of Laura Borràs and her situation of interinity in the Parliament, which generates more tension between the two partners.
Unfortunately, either we are very much mistaken, or little is going to change in the next month. Esquerra can make grandiloquent gestures for the gallery with symbolic votes in Parliament, but it will not change its strategic line. Junts is playing hardball by calling for a consultation of its militancy so that the grassroots will be the ones who end up deciding whether it is worth continuing in the Government. If it is worth continuing in this way. In Esquerra they consider it impossible and unthinkable, although some leaders would open bottles of champagne if it were to happen.
The bottom line is that, although they say they can’t go on like this, we fear that nothing will change in the coming months. True, they can’t go on like this… but they will.
https://www.lavanguardia.com/opinion/20220830/8490936/asi-no-pueden-seguir.html
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