The PP has recovered the harsh speech against Carles Puigdemont. The deputy secretary of the popular parties, Ester Muñoz, stressed this Thursday that Puigdemont is a “fugitive from justice” and has criticized the fact that Pedro Sánchez intends to meet with him, something that was confirmed by the Government’s own resident. last Monday. The PP thus seeks a difficult balance between reaching parliamentary agreements with Junts and, at the same time, attacking the President of the Government for his relationship with the leader of the independence party.
Muñoz, who appeared at a press conference, assumed that Sánchez will meet with the former Catalan president next year. “2025 will be the year of the photo of the President of the Government with a fugitive from justice like Mr. Puigdemont. Mr. Sánchez said that he will meet in Waterloo or wherever. If Mr. Puigdemont asks him to go to Waterloo in exchange for keeping him in the Government, he will go; If Mr. Puigdemont asks him to leave the Falcon and walk on a pilgrimage, Mr. Sánchez, who is in survival mode, will have no other reasons than to walk to Waterloo,” he stated.
The deputy secretary of the PP has recalled several times that Puigdemont – who fled Spain at the end of October 2017 and is being prosecuted in absentia by the Supreme Court – is a “fugitive from justice”, resuming the harsh tone against the independence leader; Despite this, the PP has just reached an agreement with Junts in Congress to reduce the tax on energy companies, which collects about 1.5 billion euros per year. The Popular Party admits contacts with Junts “at different levels” to negotiate the transactional amendment signed by both parties, and which also received the support of the PNV, Vox and UPN. But, at the same time, the PP questions Sánchez for his pacts with the independentists, and tries to portray him as a president subjugated to the interests of these formations.
“If Puigdemont asks Sánchez to start dancing a jota to stay in the Government, he will have no choice but to dance a jota,” Muñoz exemplified today. “Sánchez is giving up absolutely everything in order to stay in power. The one who rules in this relationship is Puigdemont. Since the legislature began, we have been denouncing it: that Spain’s interests would not be negotiated in Spain but outside, with a fugitive from justice,” the popular leader insisted.
The PP leadership defends its agreements with Junts, despite the fact that some sectors of the party warn that with this strategy they run the risk of legitimizing the Government’s pacts. “The PP has not signed these agreements in exchange for compensation, unlike Sánchez,” argue sources from the popular leadership. According to these sources, there are “many interested in trying to equate some agreements with others, when they have nothing to do with each other” because the PP has so far only agreed on fiscal and economic matters “when Junts rises up on the right”, and on the other hand the Socialist leader has granted pardons, amnesty and special financing for Catalonia as a condition to be able to maintain the Government.
The Popular Party has, however, opened a path of rapprochement with Puigdemont’s party, which they intend to continue exploring in 2025 to deliver new parliamentary defeats to the Government, and with the hope that the independentists end up dropping Sánchez from La Moncloa. That path in reference to a hypothetical motion of censure.
The popular deputy secretary has, on the other hand, defended justice in the investigations into Sánchez’s entourage, which the president has come to describe as “judicial harassment.” “Sánchez is cornered by corruption. The judges are not to blame for having to investigate all the signs of corruption in Pedro Sánchez’s environment, the one who is to blame is the one who has allegedly embezzled and enriched himself during the pandemic,” Muñoz stressed. “Is there anyone who has more clear cards than the state attorney general? What is coming for 2025 is much worse for the president: his wife, his brother, his exnumber two. We will see if the judges decide to open oral trials in all these cases.”
