Catalan socialist leader to seek ‘reconciliation’ with Madrid ahead of May elections

Former health minister and Catalan Socialist Party candidate Salvador Illa has vowed to usher in a new era of ‘hope’ for the Spanish region and help it overcome its troubled relations with Madrid if he is to be elected in the regional elections on 12 May, he announced on Saturday.

“I want to express my commitment to making a new future a reality: to open a new stage in Catalonia, to open a new future and a stage of hope, to make a new stage for political normalisation in Catalonia a reality,” Illa said.

Illa called for a Catalonia “that is involved in building a plural and diverse Spain” and rejected “the Catalonia of complaints, the Catalonia of victimisation,” and that which “divides and erects borders,” Euractiv’s partner EFE reported.

The PSC ratified Illa’s re-election as first secretary of the Catalan branch of the PSOE on Saturday, at the same time officially declaring him the party’s candidate for the regional elections.

After the Catalan parliament failed to pass this year’s budget, the president of the region’s government (Generalitat), Pere Aragonès of the separatist Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), decided last week to call snap elections, in which the Socialist candidate is the favourite.

The latest polls predict that ERC will be the second-largest force in the regional government, followed by the right-wing separatist party Together for Catalonia (JxCat), led by former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont from his exile in Belgium.

Last week, Catalan public television station TV3 reported that Puigdemont will be JxCat’s candidate for the elections, although the separatist leader said that nothing has been decided yet.

In order to return to Spain – in principle without fear of arrest – Puigdemont needs the Senate’s swift approval of the amnesty law proposed by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to pardon those responsible for unlawful separatist actions in Catalonia between 2012 and 2023.

‘Yes to amnesty, no to a ‘Catalan Republic’

According to a survey published last November by the Baròmetre d’Opinió Política del Centre d’Estudis d’Opinió (CEO), 60% of Catalans (eight million people) support the amnesty law, compared to 31% who reject it.

On the other hand, even though separatist leaders announced last week that the amnesty law is “only the first step” on the road to Catalan independence, recent polls do not indicate as much support for achieving independence as in previous polls.

According to the ICPS poll, only 39.5% would support the region’s independence, compared to 52.5% who reject it, El País reported.

A study published last January by the Institute of Political and Social Sciences (ICPS) of Catalonia showed that only 5% of Catalans believe there will be a “Catalan Republic” in the future.

On Friday, a delegation from the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe approved – in its general outline – the text of the law, although it made several recommendations before it is approved by the Spanish parliament.

The panel’s constitutional experts say that the amnesty law covers a very broad period and is too vague in its legal scope, so they recommend that it be limited in time and passed by a qualified majority rather than an absolute majority.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)