Pedro Gorospe – Javier Iñíguez – Camilo S. Baquero
Bilbao / Barcelona 25 OCT 2019 – 17:37 CEST
New jug of cold water from the Basque Nationalist Party to Catalan independence. The entity of Andoni Ortúzar has been distanced itself this Friday from a manifesto that 12 nationalist and independence parties have signed in Barcelona vindicating the “right of self-determination” and the freedom of Catalan leaders condemned by the Supreme Court in the trial process. The text has been signed by entities of Galicia (BNG), Basque Country (EH Bildu), Valencian Community (Esquerra Valenciana, Valencian Republic), Balearic Islands (Més per Mallorca and Més per Menorca) and Catalonia (Crida, CUP, Demòcrates de Catalunya , ERC, Junts per Catalunya and PDeCAT).
The PNV has declined to sign the document because in its opinion it reflects “a negative view of the current reality of the Spanish State” and lacks “constructive and / or proactive spirit.” The Nationalist Bloc Valencià, one of the three parties that make up Compromís and to which its deputy in the Joan Baldoví Congress belongs, has also refused to sign this document, says Ignacio Zafra.
Arnaldo Otegi, current coordinator of EH Bildu; Pere Aragonès, vice president of the Generalitat; Laura Borràs, spokesman for Junts per Catalunya in the Congress, have been some of the leaders present. The act has been staged in the building of the Llotja in Barcelona and has finished without appearing from the signatory political formations. This afternoon the president of the Generalitat, Quim Torra, will receive the driving firces behind the manifesto.
The declaration of the 12 formations defends “the right to self-determination” of their “people” and claims “the democratic and peaceful nature” of their political action. At the same time, the text calls for “the freedom of political prisoners [convicted independence leaders] and the return of exiles [Catalan politicians escaped from justice outside Spain]” and has a section that calls for defending “socio-economic policies that allow the progress “of their people.” The text justifies these measures to what they consider the “impossibility of full democratization of the State” or “the lack of respect for the right to self-determination.” It also blames certain “political, judicial, economic or media agents”, who, according to the signatories, prevent Spain from “transforming itself into a fully democratic State like those of its European environment.”
The absence of the Basque Nationalist Party in the reading of the manifesto has been one of the most outstanding aspects of the day. Faced with criticism from the Abertzale left for not attending the event, the Basque formation recalled its presence during the Barcelona Declaration, a document that they signed in 1998 together with CiU and BNG, when the claim focused on the decentralization of Spain and Not in independence. According to sources of the PNV, “the declaration signed today affects almost exclusively the complaint and the projection of a negative vision of the current reality in the Spanish State, with hardly any constructive and / or proactive spirit.”
The PNV, as these sources have explained, affirms that it is not only the differences between the document presented this Friday and that Declaration of Barcelona that demanded the national recognition of “Euskadi, Catalunya and Galiza”. The party does not consider that the initiative comes at the most opportune moment, “just ten days after the start of an electoral campaign and in a exceptional political climate.”
The Basque nationalists, who insist on emotional closeness with their “sister party, PDeCAT”, argue that they have already shown the promoters of the Declaration of the Llotja de Mar their full willingness to work in the coming months in a more peaceful context and with the timeframe demanded by large agreements in documents and initiatives that could lead to an update or reissue of the Barcelona Declaration of 1998.
https://elpais.com/ccaa/2019/10/25/catalunya/1571999171_669084.html
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