JxCat maintains that the agreement is possible and urges ERC to continue negotiating

BarcelonaThe secretary general of Junts per Catalunya, Jordi Sànchez, has responded this Saturday to ERC's announcement to explore the path of the solitary government by offering an extended hand to continue negotiating a coalition government. Without concealing his surprise at the appearance of the vice-president of the Govern and national coordinator of the Republicans, Pere Aragonès, Sànchez has assured that his formation will continue working to reach an agreement before the deadline of 26 May. "There are 18 days left, but our agreement is close. There are no excuses. It is not normal to give up the possibility of a strategic agreement", warned the leader of Junts, who has denied that his formation wants to impose "tutelage" on Aragonès.

However, if ERC maintains its will to govern alone, Sànchez has assured that his party will study to yield four MPs for the investiture of Aragonès in the case that the republicans reach an agreement with the CUP and the Comuns. "Junts will decide what its position will be depending on the agreement it ends up establishing with ERC", he warned. It should be remembered that JxCat recently announced that it would submit any decision on the investiture to the vote of the bases.

In an intervention by videoconference from Lledoners prison, Sànchez has assured that until now the meetings between JxCat and ERC "had gone reasonably well", so he has been surprised by the fact that the Republicans have come out this Saturday to make official their commitment to govern alone. "We would have liked this forcefulness that Aragonès showed a while ago to have been shown with Pedro Sánchez after a year and a half without answers"; he said, and stressed that 13 MPs - those that Esquerra has in Parliament - are not enough to force "a state determined to bend the national aspirations of a country" to negotiate.

Despite the discrepancies, the secretary general of Junts has repeatedly stressed that his party remains open to dialogue to create this government. "It is the responsibility of all parties not to waste the 52% of the pro-independence vote", he defended. Sènchez has also wanted to emphasize that it is not true that Junts wants to put "tutelage" to Aragonès, nor that the disagreement between both parties stems from Junts wanting "one Department or another".

Puigdemont's toughness: "We will not allow ourselves to be stepped on"

After Jordi Sànchez, it was the turn of Carles Puigdemont, who took the floor from Waterloo to close the congress that Junts por Catalunya held to appoint the new president of the National Council -Anna Erra- and the new member's ombudsman, Josep Pagès. In a harsh tone, Puigdemont has claimed the importance of JxCat and the need for it to be a strong party because it is a formation that "hinders" many people. "Today we know more clearly than ever that independence needs Junts to exist and be relevant. We will not allow ourselves to be disrespected. We will not allow ourselves to be trampled on", he said by way of a warning to all those who, he said, have belittled them as a "political force or strategic project". "We will not remain silent in the face of those who believe that this country can be governed well, that it can address the serious and urgent problems that our people have, or that it can be a country of progress, allowing a fiscal deficit of 160,000 million euros, which is what we will lose in the next 10 years if we are not independent", he stressed.

Puigdemont, who asked the Junts grassroots for "unity" and "empathy towards the leaders of the party", has established Junts as the party of "effective" pro-independence, the "party of facts". The independence movement that, he said, "does not renounce, nor does it make partisan calculations in order to win regional elections or make governments of those who spend years or push for office". In this sense, he warned that his party "has not come to make policy to postpone the response to Catalonia's needs", and warned that experience has amply demonstrated that "the needs of Catalonia will not be resolved by the Spanish state".