Catalan President Urges Junts To Seize Independence Negotiation Opportunity

Catalan president Pere Aragonès has closed the political year, prior to the start of summer holidays, with a press conference after the weekly meeting of the Catalan cabinet in which he has again defended his proposal for a Clarity Agreement to set “rules” for self-determination aspirations and also urged Together for Catalonia (Junts) to “take advantage of the opportunity” that the independence movement has on the table when negotiating the investiture of Pedro Sánchez as head of a new Spanish government. And neither of the two things pleased the president of Junts, Laura Borràs, who reacted to Aragonès’s words by affirming that the head of the Catalan government is “disconnected” from the reality of the independence movement, and noting that Aragonès’s party, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) fell from 23 to just 14 representatives in the July 23rd election. “Coming out and talking about the dialogue table and the clarity agreement today only shows his level of disconnection from the reality of independentism”, criticised Borràs in a tweet, also chiding Aragonès for talking about her party’s votes with regard to Pedro Sánchez’s investiture:

 “And about the votes of Junts, we will talk about that from Junts”, responded Borràs. In his press conference, Aragonès had assured that there are “shared positions” in Catalonia among the 14 pro-independence deputies, infuriating those of Junts.

Sortir a parlar de Taula de Diàleg i d’acord de claredat avui només demostra el seu nivell de desconnexió de la realitat de l’independentisme.

I dels vots de @JuntsXCat ja en parlarem els de Junts.https://t.co/V6NyYNS7DX

— Laura Borràs 🎗 (@LauraBorras) August 1, 2023

Translation of tweet:
“Coming out to talk about the Dialogue Table and the clarity agreement today only demonstrates his level of disconnection from the reality of independence. And about the votes of Junts, we will talk about that from Junts.” – Laura Borràs

This Tuesday, in front of the journalists, Aragonès avoided getting into specifics but urged Junts to take advantage of the situation it found itself in to ensure that Catalonia can vote on its future in a referendum and that the repression is brought to an end, as well as ending the fiscal and infrastructure deficits, the conditions that ERC had placed on the investiture of the Socialist candidate, as Aragonès himself revealed weeks ago in an election event in Hospitalet de Llobregat. 

“Pedro Sánchez will have to move. It is up to him to make proposals”, warned the president, although from Madrid, the only public proposal that has arrived is that of the acting finance minister, María Jesús Montero , for an “urgent” reform of the financing system for Spain’s autonomous communities, and to pardon the debt of Catalonia and other communities. In response to this approach by the Socialists, the Junts deputy Joan Canadell recalled that a few weeks ago his party presented a motion along the same lines, but the Catalan Socialists voted against it. “It seems that their bosses in Madrid have a different idea or need”, he reflected.

Produced in association with El Nacional En