Catalan leader: Amnesty, self-determination ‘essential’ to solve conflict with Madrid

Amnesty and self-determination are essential for Catalonia to make substantial progress in resolving the ongoing dispute between the region and Spain’s central government, Catalan Prime Minister Pere Aragonès warned on Monday at an event attended by pro-independence leader Carles Puigdemont.

At an event held in the abbey of Sant Miquel de Cuixà, in Codalet (France), the head of Catalonia’s regional government of pro-independence Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), recalled that “there is a political conflict pending resolution”.

This, he warned, is not “due to repression” but rather “to the (Spanish) State’s refusal to recognise Catalonia’s right to decide its future”, EFE and regional daily El Periódico de Cataluña reported.

Aragonès demanded that “that progress be made in resolving the political conflict around a fully democratic solution so that this event (in France) becomes an event of democratic normality, we demand more than ever amnesty and self-determination.”

The event, organised by the Catalan Summer University to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Spanish cellist and composer Pau Casals (1876-1973), was attended by former presidents of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont – a fugitive of Spanish Justice – Quim Torra, Jordi Pujol and José Montilla.

In his speech, Puigdemont, the leader of the pro-independence JuntsXCat assured that he is not looking for “solutions” to his situation – he may be extradited to Spain – but rather exploring ways to solve the longstanding political conflict in Catalonia.

After the snap general election on 23 July, the key to a new progressive government in Spain is in the hands of the seven deputies of JuntsXCat, but Puigdemont has set several conditions for supporting the socialist candidate and acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez.

‘I am Catalan’

In his intervention, the former president of the Generalitat referred to a speech given by Pau Casals to the United Nations General Assembly in October 1971.

That year, Casals gave a concert at the UN headquarters in New York, where he was presented with the Peace Medal. With emotion, he delivered a few words of thanks in improvised English, in which he said, “I am Catalan (Catalonia) is today a province of Spain. But what has Catalonia been? Catalonia has been the greatest nation in the world”, La Vanguardia had reported.

“He made that speech because he felt he had to contribute to the nation”, Puigdemont stated.

“When we ask for Catalan to be a language of Europe, a living language alongside the others, we do so along the same lines as the generations that preceded us, but thinking of others and not just of ourselves, in the same way, that Pau Casals did, without seeking a personal way out for himself”, Puigdemont stressed, adding that Catalonia’s pro-independence forces have “the right to do the same”.

His words also indirectly referred to the hypothesis of a possible pardon by a future progressive government in Spain forged by the socialist party (PSOE/S&D) and the left-wing bloc Sumar, among other JuntsXCat’s demands –including amnesty and self-determination- to vote for a new investiture of Pedro Sánchez.

Puigdemont resides in the Belgian town of Waterloo, near Brussels, where he fled the Spanish justice system on 30 October 2017 after a failed – and illegal – unilateral declaration of independence of Catalonia and after being dismissed by former prime minister Mariano Rajoy (PP/EPP).

This was the first time that Puigdemont appeared in public in France after the General Court of the European Union on 5 July lifted his immunity as an MEP, a measure which could now pave the way for a new European Arrest Warrant against him issued by Spain’s High Court judge Pablo Llarena, for the offences of embezzlement and disobedience.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.EURACTIV.es)