Niubó says they will move forward with the agreement despite the teachers' 'no'

BarcelonaTwo hours after learning that 39,500 teachers have voted against the preliminary agreement between unions and Education, the minister Esther Niubó, appeared to explain that the measures of the pact would go ahead. "The commitment to implement this agreement is there," she defended, and recalled that "only" USTEC has said it will not sign the agreement, while Professors de Secundària, CCOO, and UGT will. The minister explained this after an emergency meeting with President Salvador Illa.

"We understand that we have done our job by listening to union representatives and reaching agreements," defended Niubó, who urged them to reconsider: "I feel obliged to ask for an exercise of responsibility," she said. In this regard, she also announced that she would convene a round of contacts with union forces to "make a joint assessment" of the situation. "We are clear that the country moves forward through agreements, blocking is not positive in any case."

Regarding the call for a strike this Friday, Niubó expressed respect for the exercise of this right, but asked that it be "compatible" with having an "orderly" end to the course and that students' rights or mobility not be affected. "The Government has done its homework, we must re-evaluate the situation we are in, and hopefully, we can finish the course in an orderly manner," she declared.

The opposition asks to negotiate again

The teachers' door slam on the pre-agreement has resonated strongly this morning in Parliament. The opposition parties have held the executive responsible for the current situation and have asked it to resume negotiations with the unions. From ERC — a government partner for the budgets that began to move forward in Parliament this Thursday — Oriol Junqueras assured on X that he "respects" the teachers' "no" to the agreement with Education, while the spokesperson for the Republicans in the chamber, Ester Capella, has asked the Government to work "to reach a new agreement".

The Commons, the other partners of the executive, have gone a step further: Jéssica Albiach believes that the rejection of the pre-agreement evidences a problem of "model" and has called on the Government to convene parties, unions, and families to make "a change of course". "They have to start over," she demanded in her speech during the full debate on the Budgets in the plenary session of the Catalan Chamber. And she concluded: "It cannot be that the school ends up taking charge of all the discomforts and problems we have as a country."

From Junts, on the contrary, spokesperson Mònica Sales has called on ERC and Commons to, after the "no" in the teachers' consultation, rectify and not support the Generalitat's budgets, while Salvador Vergés has asked that councilor Esther Niubó step aside from the negotiation and that Salvador Illa take over. In a press conference, he defended that it is “the moment” for the president to lead "in person" the educational crisis. 

Finally, CUP deputy Pilar Castillejo has joined the call for "the reopening of negotiations without limits or imposed constraints" and considers that, after the "monumental slap" from the teachers, the resolution of the crisis must condition the endorsement of the budgets of Junqueras and Albiach. "They should not move forward if the critical situation of education is not resolved," she said.