Why I will vote 'no' to breaking the agreement with the PSOE
I can understand and even share the frustration we pro-independence supporters feel over the limited progress or successive delays on many formally agreed-upon issues, such as the implementation of the amnesty, the reform of the regional financing system—pending for many years—and the transfer of the commuter rail system to Catalonia, which has not been implemented.
However, all this does not lead me to make a decision to break the agreements with the Spanish government and the PSOE reached in the negotiations carried out in Brussels and Switzerland, with the participation of an international mediator, for the reasons I will try to explain below.
The Catalan, Spanish, and European context right now requires stability. We have seen how governmental instability in France and Germany has led to undesirable scenarios that only favor the growth of populist and far-right options, and the polls in both Spain and Catalonia show similar trends. Thus, any early elections do not benefit the interests of Catalonia, the pro-independence forces, or those of us who defend positions of moderation and necessary negotiation on all kinds of issues.
Electoral arithmetic has given the pro-independence forces a unique position in the Congress of Deputies that is very unlikely to be repeated; therefore, it must be taken advantage of and not underestimated.
On the part of Junts, the choice of issues that require change has not been the most appropriate, since some, such as Catalan in Europe or immigration powers, do not depend exclusively on the Spanish government or the PSOE, although they could undoubtedly do more than they have done so far.
Finally, membership consultations, although a mechanism for democratic participation of undoubted value, have also demonstrated in recent years in Catalonia that leaving a momentous decision to some two thousand people, who are ultimately the ones who tip the balance one way or the other, does not necessarily represent what the party leadership would want. On the part of the party leadership, which has been elected precisely to make decisions that escape the day-to-day work of members, this is a dereliction of responsibilities, because they are the ones who have all the information, who conduct the negotiations with the government and the PSOE, and who choose the topics and pace of the negotiations. Transferring the decision to the members, who will vote based on feelings and indirect information, is an option that allows them to shrug off responsibilities and is one more reason that would explain the political disaffection that citizens feel toward their political representatives.
For all these reasons, and believing that Junts per Catalunya must maintain its vocation as a governing party, with whom agreements can be reached for the benefit of the society of which it is a part, I will vote no in the referendum to break the Brussels agreement.
