Aragonès to demand Sánchez complies with report by Council of Europe

Barcelona"That Spain complies with the Council of Europe". This is the demand that the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, will take this Tuesday to the Spanish President, Pedro Sánchez, in the meeting with the Spanish government held at the Moncloa. He refers to the content of the report approved last week by this body that, among other issues, demanded the release of political prisoners and the withdrawal of the Euro-orders that still weigh against the exiles. Aragonès has explained it in an intervention before the national council of ERC, the first conclave in which the President of the party, Oriol Junqueras, has been able to participate since he left prison last Wednesday.

Aragonès has exposed how the new stage of dialogue that will begin this Tuesday between the Generalitat and the State is proposed. He has anticipated that it will be "one of the most complex stages that the Generalitat will have faced in its recent history", but has promised "determination" to find a way out of the political conflict. He is clear about what the solution is, amnesty and negotiating a referendum on the independence of Catalonia, but he also knows that the Spanish government rejects both for now. Be that as it may, he has insisted that the amnesty of all the reprisals would have to be "the first step" to later "open a frank and honest negotiation with equality of the parties".

For the President of the Generalitat, there will be no possible solution to the political conflict if first the repression that still exists is not stopped, and he has recalled that, for example, the Court of Auditors will communicate a millionaire bail to the 41 senior officials of the Generalitat investigated by the foreign action of the Government between 2011 and 2017. A court that, for Aragonès, is controlled by the Spanish nationalist right and acts, according to him, with the complicity of the Spanish left, which does nothing to stop it. This issue will also come up in the meeting with the President of the Spanish government.

"Independence is a duty"

This Monday's was the first national council of ERC since its President, Oriol Junqueras, was released from prison. In the Axa auditorium in Barcelona, a standing ovation received him and the other political prisoners pardoned from the party: Carme Forcadell, Raül Romeva and Dolors Bassa. Junqueras was so eager to speak that he went straight to the lectern. They had to warn him that it was not yet his turn. "We have come out thirsty for words", he excused himself when it was finally his turn to speak. In his first speech he recalled that, despite the pardons that have allowed him to leave prison, repression does not stop. "Repression is coming down on our people, now through the 13th court, the 18th court and the Court of Auditors" he recalled.

The diagnosis of the republican is that this Monday was a day to be happy - "A little happy", he said - because political prisoners like him are already free, but warned that this is not enough. Thus, he argued that there are still many victims of reprisals for which we must continue to fight, such as the Secretary General of the party, Marta Rovira, in exile in Switzerland. He also recalled that he is still being prosecuted by the Court of Auditors, a case that could end with the seizure of his assets. "They will be seizing the house of our children. No democracy in the world can afford the luxury of retaliating against its children", he concluded. Finally, a message unequivocally in favour of the party's roadmap continues to bet on a republic: "Independence is more than ever a duty before the repression we suffer".