Carles Puigdemont sends another pre-Christmas warning to Pedro Sánchez: “If things do not change much, we cannot give support to the Government.” The former Catalan president gave an interview to TV3 this Tuesday where he took the opportunity to ratify the reproaches that he himself expressed eight days ago in a press conference. “I didn’t like saying that things are not going well,” he said, before pointing out that, despite this supposed displeasure, he sees little room to redirect relations: “I cannot deny the evidence, we are at a point where we cannot be ”. Among the most pressing issues that Junts and PSOE have on the table is the unblocking of the: “We can’t even negotiate them,” Puigdemont considers. The former Catalan president maintains that Junts’ interest in subjecting Sánchez to a question of trust is “a tactical move” and advances that, if the Government stops the process, “it would cause the legislature to collapse” because the withdrawal of support from Junts to the Executive would be automatic. Puigdemont advances that, in the event of a veto, there will be “irreversible consequences” and maintains that the margin runs out on January 7.
TV3 had justified the scheduling of the interview with Puigdemont based on the “information interest” it arouses at the moment. It is common for Catalan public television to reserve a prime-time slot for the opposition leader. It was done at the time with Carlos Carrizosa (Ciudadanos) or with Salvador Illa himself (PSC), but it so happens that, after being the second most voted candidate in the elections of May 12, Puigdemont expressly resigned from the position of leader. of the opposition.
His statements last week, about the doubts generated by the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez, he assured that “they are not trustworthy” and asked the president to submit to a vote of confidence, have cast a strong burden of uncertainty around to the support that the Catalan independence movement gives to the Government. Junts’ seven votes in Congress are key for the Executive to be able to unblock key issues for the legislature and, in that sense, the 2025 vote announces an imminent crossroads.
“We have to make decisions and tell the truth to our voters,” reasons the former presidentwhen he justifies the anger he shows at the poor evolution of the deals with the PSOE. When asked if there is a possibility of mending misgivings, he does not avoid skepticism: “Is there room? I don’t know, I know how they have acted until now,” he emphasizes.
According to the leader of Junts, the approval of the amnesty law is not a wild card that the Government can use to extend the game of give and take that it maintains with the independence party: “The amnesty is not happening and it was a price for the investiture “, says Puigdemont, and criticizes that “an amnesty that has no effects, that does not include everyone, is not valid.” He alleges that he has to continue living in Belgium because entering Catalonia implies the risk of being arrested. He criticizes Sánchez for keeping “silence” in the face of the judicial obstacles to the amnesty and, in the same way, because he is treated as an “alleged criminal.” Puigdemont criticizes that president has not visited him, as he has done with his predecessors in the Generalitat.
Puigdemont and Miriam Nogueras insisted a year ago that Junts provided support for Sánchez’s investiture because it applied the strategy of “getting paid in advance.” The head of the party now admits that, having burned through an entire calendar, expectations have not matched reality: “It is not a balance that I am satisfied with.” The transfer of immigration management to the Generalitat is another of the issues that Junts presented at the time as an achievement. Given the lack of concreteness, Puigdemont points out frictions: “There are issues on which we are stuck.” The training requires that the Catalan administration have full control of the entire process, from borders to expulsion proposals, something that the Government does not view favorably.
