July 9, 2021
Salvador Illa, leader of the opposition in Catalonia / PSC
The PSC will take the pro-independence rescue fund to the Consell de Garanties Statutàries
Salvador Illa assures that he has no problems supporting the initiative, as long as the doubts about its legal position are dispelled
The leader of the PSC, Salvador Illa, has announced that his party will bring the pro-independence rescue fund to the Council of Statutory Guarantees. “We will ask it to issue an opinion”, he has stated in an interview on Catalunya Ràdio. The opposition leader has assured that they would have no problems in supporting these extraordinary fund of 10 million Euros destined to cover the bonds of the 34 accused by the Court of Accounts (TdC) for the organization of the 1-O provided that the legal doubts about the initiative are solved.
And this is precisely what will be done with the supervision of the guarantors of the Statute of Autonomy. “IF the decision is legal, we will have no problem supporting it,” he said. Regarding the Catalan independence process, the PSC organization secretary has recognized that the party “made a mistake” in 2012 with its support for holding a kind of referendum on autonomy to know the strength of each of the positions, pro-independence and pro-constitution.
“We were wrong, we wanted to do it to know people’s opinion, but then we saw that what others wanted was not the same,” he acknowledged. In this way, he intones the mea culpa, on a decision that was already controversial a decade ago and that led to a fracture between the PSC and a part of the so-called constitutionalism.
Criticisms of Aragonès
Illa also took advantage of the interview to show his “disappointment” with the decision of the pro-independence side to block the convening of a party table to debate the Catalan political conflict. The proposal promoted by the Catalan socialists. He recalled that the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, “voted in favor of this same proposal in 2018”. He points out that the Catalan Executive has made the banner of dialogue, but that in the movements of the last week he shows how he only wants to promote monologues for his own and not listen to us ”.
Regarding the cessions that the independence movement demands from the Government on amnesty and self-determination, Illa has made it clear that he will not enter in this field. “I will not dialogue, because it insists on a divisive approach”, he has sentenced. He remembers that self-determination is not applicable to Catalonia “because it is not a colony and Spain is not a repressive state.”
“Moment of dialogue”
The socialist leader has placed great emphasis on the need for dialogue to “regain economic leadership and social cohesion”. It is for this reason that all political representatives “must conspire to bring a new time to Catalonia.” Along the same lines, he has assured that the PSC asks for a table in Catalonia, but has “no problem with President Sánchez calling it at the state level.”
With the aim of recovering the economic and business fabric of Catalonia, Illa has advocated for the expansion of the El Prat airport or to support the candidacy to organize a “winter Olympic games together with Aragon, to promote the Pyrenean area”. However, the most important thing is “to create legal certainty and generate stability.”
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