The President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has assured that in order to restore trust with the Government of Pedro Sánchez for spying on pro-independence leaders, “a meeting by itself does not resolve anything”, and calls for transparency, assumption of responsibilities and guarantees of not repetition.
In an interview in the newspaper ‘Ara’, he warned that if these requests are not fulfilled it will be “very difficult” for the Government to continue to count on the support of the ERC in Congress during this legislature.
He has defended that his meeting with Sánchez at the Cercle d’Economia in Barcelona on Friday is insufficient “in the face of a problem of this magnitude”, and assures that he has conveyed to him the need to meet and that they have agreed to do so within a period that he trusts when it is short.
He explained that he hopes that this meeting will serve to “restore trust in the relationship and credibility, which today is extremely damaged not only by espionage, but above all by the management that the Spanish Government has carried out, which with each passing day was further deteriorating the situation.
Aragonès has also criticized the reaction of the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, because she considers that “a democratic government cannot have a minister who says” that political leaders are being spied on for being pro-independence, according to Europa Press.
Asked if he believes that Sánchez knew about the espionage, he assured that to respond he needs “absolute transparency that there is not” and that he considers that at the moment a lot of information is being hidden, and he urges the Government to make it public.
Regarding espionage on members of the Government, he has said that “if what they wanted was to mislead the staff, it is evident that they have failed” and considers that the management of the Sánchez Executive from day one has been a disaster and requires a turning point .
For Aragonès, if this turning point does not occur, it will be the responsibility of the Government to have made impossible a path of dialogue that began a year ago and that on the part of the Government “had all the will to resolve the political conflict with the State”.
On the other hand, he has made a new meeting of the dialogue table conditional on restoring “a minimum trust between the parties and restoring the credibility of this process as well”, and he assures that his commitment to dialogue remains unchanged because he considers that it is the best way to achieve independence.
Asked if Junts’ skepticism has been reinforced by this case, he replied that skepticism already existed before the espionage and that his absolute conviction, he says, is that the State must be forced to negotiate, to which he adds: “At times like the present we are loaded with reasons to force the state to negotiate.”
“I respect Junts’ position, but I reaffirm that the path of political negotiation is the right one, the one that gives us more strength and the one that allows us to be absolutely demanding with a Spanish government that is currently not up to the task” , has added.
Asked if he would opt for the unilateral path of not being satisfied with the Government’s response, he highlighted the importance of “much broader majorities and international support, which is much easier to come by if you go under the banner of dialogue and the negotiation”.
Regarding the support in the Parliament, he has assured that the will of the Government is that they come from the partners that allowed the investiture, for which he assures that he will not stop “proposing to the CUP the possibility of reaching agreements and also to other political forces, such as the comuns”.
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