Puigdemont activates the countdown in the PSOE: "Things might happen in the fall. We've already given ourselves enough time."

Conflent MeadowNeither Junts nor Carles Puigdemont are willing to give the PSOE more extensions to comply with commitments they've been dragging on for years. This is the message the former president of the Generalitat wanted to send from Prada de Conflent, at the Catalan Summer University, where he gave a lecture on Pompeu Fabra this Tuesday. The first of these pacts is the official status of Catalan in Europe, signed two years ago at the constitution of the board in Congress, but it is not the only one. And the Junts leader is beginning to run out of patience: "Stability must be earned periodically. And, in the autumn, perhaps things will happen that haven't happened until now, because we've already given enough time," he warned. However, he declined to anticipate what this warning might take.

Juntos has parked the demand for the question of confidence with which he flirted at the beginning of the yearHowever, since the outbreak of the Cerdán case, he has been issuing warnings to the Socialists about the direction of the legislature. This was done by the Secretary General, Jordi Turull, at an event in Prats de Molló, suggesting that the party should make "difficult" decisions to be a "guarantee of national progress" after losing, with the fall of Santos Cerdán, his main negotiating link with the PSOE. In addition to Catalan in Europe, the transfer of immigration powers to the Generalitat is pending, which must go through Congress and has encountered furious opposition from Podemos, which complicates the parliamentary arithmetic for the law to be passed. "The political course already sees how it is presented," Puigdemont added the following day. that Esquerra should warn Pedro Sánchez that will not count on their votes for the budget if it does not move forward with the unique funding for Catalonia. Its leader, Oriol Junqueras, also did so from Prada.

In Junts, however, they still see it as possible to achieve official status for Catalan in Europe. Despite acknowledging that it is a "slow" process and that "patience" is necessary, Puigdemont has insisted that the Spanish government can do more: it needs to pick up the phones and use the "influence" it now has within the EU to overcome political resistance within the EU Council and achieve unanimity among member states. According to the former president, there is no legal argument against the official status of Catalan. "But there is a party called the PP that has made calls to block it," he criticized, and accused the Popular Party of being the heirs of "Francoism." In this sense, he argued that official status can serve as an act of reparation for the "violence" the regime inflicted on its speakers—for example, by changing place names or preventing children from being given Catalan, Galician, and Basque names. He also called on Germany to lift its veto on the proposal.

"If the language fails, everything fails."

Puigdemont's speech generated long queues at the UCE auditorium, which received him with a standing ovation.- and dozens of people followed the speech from outside when it was full. The former president was scheduled to attend last year's event, but canceled at the last minute for fear of being arrested after his fleeting return on the day of Salvador Illa's inauguration.

After visiting the Prada cemetery to lay a wreath at the tomb of Pompeu Fabra, the Junts leader focused his remarks on language, but also on immigration. Given the "demographic change" in Catalonia due to the decline in the birth rate and the arrival of newcomers, he argued, it is necessary to ensure that the Generalitat (Catalan government) has the necessary powers and resources to promote integration policies. "There are those who thrive on slogans and clichés. We know it's a complex issue that isn't resolved easily or quickly, but we have to get on with it," he argued. Puigdemont didn't mention the Catalan Alliance, but did warn that "the xenophobic impulse" exists in all societies.

Faced with this challenge, the former president has asserted that the key to the nation's recovery remains language, as Pompeu Fabra advocated. "If the language fails, everything fails," he said, paraphrasing the philologist's most famous words. He therefore called for the Catalan forces to unite and, in every negotiation they consider with the state, to position Catalan as an "unrenounceable and indispensable" milestone.

On this front, however, Puigdemont is not waiting for Salvador Illa's PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), whom he has once again accused of promoting a "denationalizing agenda" and of looking the other way in the face of the possibility that the Constitutional Court will endorse the 25% Spanish language threshold and overturn the Catalan law that held it back (already held it back). He also took a swipe at the Minister of Language Policy, Francesc Xavier Vila: "He may put on a sour face, but he'll continue to act as if it's raining."