Pedro Sánchez accelerates measures to comply with Junts’ demands. The President of the Government has announced the approval in the Council of Ministers this Tuesday to materialize some of the promises that are pending and that motivated Carles Puigdemont’s break. “I assume the non-compliance and delays that Junts per Catalunya has effectively criticized. I have always said that the hand is outstretched, that our will to negotiate is unequivocal, that we are going to comply with the agreements we signed with Junts,” the president expressed in an interview on RAC1 in which he valued the agreement signed in Brussels in November 2023 as “a great opportunity” to “resolve a long-standing political conflict”, with initiatives such as the amnesty.
The president has acknowledged that the dialogue with Junts is “broken” right now. This has meant that the legislature has come to a standstill given that the Government does not have a sufficient majority to move anything forward. When Puigdemont decided to break up, the Executive assured that they were fulfilling the commitments made or working towards it. “I am very clear that we have to comply with those agreements, with those commitments. We are in the process of being able to resolve this political conflict that has been going on for a long time and we need all the political actors in Catalonia, Junts and other actors,” he stated.
Sánchez intends to make a grand gesture this Tuesday with the approval of a decree law that includes some of the pending measures, such as “facilitating financially sustainable investments for local entities”, which in practice means that mayors have “more ease and flexibility” to invest in projects that do not involve current expenses, such as housing construction or water management. “It will be good for the town councils of Catalonia, but also for those of the State as a whole,” he stated.
Another of the measures that this decree law will include has to do with the extension of the deadline to promote the digitalization of billing processes in companies. This is not only a commitment to Junts but also a claim from the Catalan employers’ association.
Sánchez accuses the PP of “lobbying” against the official status of Catalan in the EU
Sánchez has referred to the “request” that Alberto Núñez Feijóo made to Catalan businessmen to convince Junts and ERC to support a motion of censure against him, although he has downplayed its importance given that Puigdemont has ruled it out. In any case, he has shown his desire for the PP and Junts to end up understanding each other in the future. “I hope that happens because that would mean that the amnesty, normalization and coexistence has been consolidated. That is also the objective of this legislature,” he noted. Later, he hoped that it would occur in the “distant future”: “We have a lot of work ahead of us.”
In fact, in a subsequent interview on the program ‘Cafè d’idees’, on RTVE’s La 2Cat, he expressed his desire for Puigdemont to return “soon” to Catalonia. “Total normalization cannot occur until he can fully exercise his rights,” said the socialist, who has once again expressed his willingness to meet with the former president, although he has admitted that “now is not the time” precisely because of the current breakdown in relations.
Regarding ‘squatting’, which is one of Junts’ main concerns in the face of its competition with the xenophobic force Aliança Catalana, the president has said that it is an issue that is “in parliamentary processing” and “making a lot of progress.” In fact, he has assured that the presentation on the multiple recidivism proposal meets this Thursday. Furthermore, the Council of Ministers will soon approve a royal decree, which does not require parliamentary validation, “to create an item that helps owners with non-payments in the case of rentals to young people or vulnerable families.”
He has also committed to publishing the fiscal balances, although he has said that he is working on a methodology to give “a true figure or approximate to the real one for this fiscal relationship between Catalonia and the State.” Regarding the publication of the classified documents on Operation Catalunya, he has assured that the Government has already sent it to Congress and has said that the so-called ‘patriotic police’ “disappeared” the moment it arrived in Moncloa in 2018.
Sánchez has said that the Government is working to make Catalan, Basque and Galician official in the EU. Specifically, the president addressed the matter with the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and a bilateral dialogue was opened with that country, which is the one leading the reluctance within the 27 to take this step, which requires unanimity.
“The PP is lobbying against these languages, something that I do not understand and seems unintelligent to me,” said Sánchez, who recalled that there are right-wing voters who speak those languages.
Asked about the commitments made with ERC that have also not been fulfilled, Sánchez assured that the new regional financing system that the Government will present at the beginning of 2026 will include “more resources” and “a multilateral system, along with a recognition of the singularities of the territories, particularly Catalonia.” Regarding the collection of taxes by Catalonia, he has recognized that “there is a technical complexity, there is a challenge with the civil service”, but that his “ambition is to fulfill it.” “It probably cannot be fully fulfilled in the coming years, but we will walk along that path,” he admitted.
Asked about the corruption cases of those who were his ‘strong men’, José Luis Ábalos, and Santos Cerdán, Sánchez insisted that there has been no irregular financing of the PSOE. “We are not going to accept any blackmail. Everyone has the right to defend themselves, but they do not have the right to spread lies, hoaxes and misinformation to try to harm other people,” he responded regarding the messages that are being sent to him through social networks and right-wing media.
The president has assured that “everything” that Ábalos is saying “is a lie,” but he has refused to take legal measures: “We are not going to enter a spiral of lawsuits.” He has also stated that “from a personal point of view”, the former head of Transport “was a great stranger” to him.
In that sense, he has been convinced that the strategy of the PP and the extreme right, through ultra organizations such as the pseudo-union Clean Hands, is to implicate him in corruption cases. Although he has avoided talking about lawfarehas mentioned the cases against his family, specifically the prosecution of his brother for hiring in the Badajoz Provincial Council years ago and the accusation of his wife, and has also questioned the sentence of the attorney general.
Source: www.eldiario.es
