The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has decided to bring forward the Catalan elections to May 12, after the Parliament has overturned its budget project due to the “crossed vetoes” of parliamentary groups that, according to has denounced, they have acted “irresponsibly.”
Aragonès solemnized this call for early elections in an appearance in the Gothic Gallery of the Palau de la Generalitat, supported by his Government councillors, who have followed his institutional declaration from the front row.
Early in the afternoon, the plenary session of the Parliament approved the amendments to all of JxCat, Vox, the CUP, En Comú Podem, Cs and PPC to the budgets of the Generalitat for this year and, immediately afterwards, Aragonès took the floor to announce an extraordinary meeting of its Government, which has traveled en bloc to the Palau de la Generalitat to make the drastic decision to end the legislature and call new elections.
Aragonès: “My goal was to finish the legislature”
“My goal was to finish the legislature, but the crossed vetoes of political groups in the Parliament prevent us from having the conditions to make it possible. Catalonia deserved an entire legislature, the citizens of the country deserved it, and they also deserved the best possible budgets, but now is not the time for regrets but for looking forward,” the president assured in the appearance.
With this electoral advance, Aragonès will seek “that Catalonia can be given a stronger Government to continue moving the country forward, accelerate the transformations and do so without dependence on the immobilists”, as he has said.
Aragonès has reiterated that the electoral advance is motivated by “the irresponsibility of the political groups”, which he has accused of “putting the party before the country” and of using “crossed vetoes” not against the Government, “but against the citizens of Catalonia” and “the public services of the country”.
“If they have had the irresponsibility of saying ‘no’ to budgets like these, I don’t want to imagine what responsibility we can expect from different budgets,” the president asked himself.
Following Aragonès’ decision to bring forward elections, the electoral campaign will begin on April 26, if the usual schedule is followed.
Turull assumes that the JxCat candidate will be Puigdemont
The general secretary of JxCat, Jordi Turull, assumed this Wednesday that his party’s candidate for the Generalitat on 12M will be Carles Puigdemont: “We will go for it,” he assured.
According to Turull, thanks to the amnesty law that Congress will approve tomorrow, Thursday, Puigdemont will be able to return to Catalonia and attend the investiture debate after the elections in Catalonia, called in advance by Aragonès “due to sectarianism” and “due to electoral calculation”, thinking that JxCat had not decided on its candidate.
Puigdemont: “It seems clear that I will be able to be in Catalonia for the investiture debate”
The leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, sees it as “evident” that he will be able to return to Catalonia for the investiture debate after the 12M elections.
“With the calendar proposed by President Aragonés, it is evident that I will be able to be present at the investiture debate and I would be very excited,” Puigdemont told the press from the European Parliament in Strasbourg (France).
The Catalan elections will coincide with the final stretch of the amnesty law
The elections in Catalonia will coincide with the final stretch of the processing of the amnesty law that could be in force at the end of the same month, after its passage through the Senate and its subsequent final approval in Congress.
A decision that occurs the day before the amnesty law, agreed between PSOE, Junts and ERC, is approved by the plenary session of Congress to be sent to the Senate where it will remain for two months, according to the intention of the PP that intends to stop it in this way. its entry into force.
The processing of the law does not seem to be in danger despite this electoral advance, which could, however, affect the next negotiations that the Government must address with its investiture partners to carry out the General State Budgets for 2024.
For now, the The planned schedule regarding the amnesty law is that it returns to the plenary session of Congress in mid-May to lift all the amendments it has received in the Senate, mostly from the PP.
Illa celebrates the advance of the Catalan elections
The first secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, celebrated this Wednesday the advance of the Catalan elections, stressed that Catalonia needs a “strong government” and assured: “The PSC is prepared and I am prepared.”
“The sooner Catalans vote, the better,” celebrated Illa, who stressed that Catalonia “needs a president, not a candidate,” as well as a “strong government” to “turn the page, move forward and to prosper.”
Sumar: The electoral advance complicates the State budgets
Sumar believes that the advance of the elections complicates the approval of the State’s public accounts for 2024 in Congress and sees it likely that those from the previous year will have to continue being extended.
Sumar sources have complained about ERC’s lack of empathy and that it has not known how to place itself in the position of En Comú in which, as they have told EFE, they have been so many times.
Although it has been the “crossed vetoes” that have prevented the Catalan accounts from being carried out, as Aragonés himself has explained, ERC has criticized the position of the commons, which has refused to support them because the Government has not paralyzed the macro-complex of Hard Rock entertainment in Tarragona.
BY: Nadeem Faisal Baiga
