The last act in which Carles Campuzano (Barcelona, 1964) participated as director of the DinCat entity (the Catalan federation of entities with intellectual disabilities) was last Sunday in the solidarity race for cerebral palsy. So he already knew that in a few hours his appointment as Minister of Social Rights would be made public. Campuzano maintains that the perspective of having been linked to the third sector for three years gives him another vision of what a Government should do.
How was the call from President Pere Aragonès?
It was Friday afternoon. I was returning from an entity in Terrassa that was laying the first stone of an innovative project, when I received a call in which we arranged a meeting in Palau at night. She asked me if she wanted to help and I said yes.
How do you understand your entry into an ERC Government coming from another political sensitivity?
The president had been talking for a long time about the idea of the whole of Catalonia. Of the broad road, appealing to the great consensus of the country that articulates these majorities of 80%. It is in this wide path where certain appointments of the Government are expressed and the incorporation of Ubasart, Nadal... and myself is explained.
Do you identify with the ERC program?
In the ERC political proposal on how to address the political conflict between Catalonia and the State, yes. The path that the Aragonese president has led in recent years is to relocate the solution to the conflict in politics and to explore dialogue and agreement. It is the way and there is no alternative.
What is not identified?
I am not from ERC, but it has never caused me rejection. I am sure that there will be moments in which we will have different views and in which we will have to find points of consensus. That Aragonès proposes me as Minister is because he already knows my ideas and wanted these attitudes and values for his Government.
Is it only close to ERC at the national level?
Within Convergència, at the time, I had been identified as being part of the social democratic ideological space. In fact, the most suggestive political parties are the modernizing and reformist Social Democrats. Therefore, a party like ERC connects with the ideals that it had defended.
Have you received any comments from your previous colleagues in the PDECat?
Most people have congratulated me. There are also some who feel bad and others who make an unpleasant comment to you. But in general everyone is fine, some from Junts and the PDECat, and from other spaces.
Do you understand the departure of Junts from the Government?
I don't understand it, although it didn't surprise me because the dynamic of Junts in recent years was going in that direction. But it never ceases to amaze me that a project that was born with the desire to be the majority is opting for a strategy that makes it insignificant.
What do you think of the claim that Junts makes of the elections?
The country asks for stability and a government that governs and deals with problems. When we had not yet overcome the covid crisis, we suffered the consequences of the war in Ukraine with a winter ahead that could be one of discontent. Inflation is the worst punishment for the middle and working classes, and raising elections is out of place.
Is there a future for the space left by Convergència?
In politics there is no vacuum. If it is empty and no one is occupying it, someone will occupy it. Regarding this space, it is evident that the incapacity of those who are called to occupy it makes it easier for others to make it their own.
Others?
When ERC decides to propose to a man who is not from the ERC and who has a very long political career in the world of Convergència, be a minister, it is surely because he is trying to represent a considerable part of the voters that Convergència had had.
After being linked to Dincat, you must know the claims of the third sector well
The three years at Dincat and at the table of the third sector give me a look at the social policies of this country seen from civil society. It allows me to set certain priorities. First of all, the department works well. Improve procedures and services, because it is flu.
It does not work well?
So far it hasn't worked well enough. Not so much because of the political leaders that there have been, who I know were concerned, but because of the department itself. There are problems of internal functioning, of procedures, of the structure of information systems, and the staff must be reinforced. The second occupation will be to weave alliances between the third sector and the Government to work with complicity. And lastly, there is a serious problem of waiting lists for the elderly and disabled that must be addressed and denounce the State's underfunding of dependency policies. We will also have to deal with the social crisis that is coming, and in this context the social shield proposed by President Aragonès must be specified in the margins with which the Government has for now, which does not have all the instruments to face a situation such as the one that comes.
And in this crisis scenario, is it justified to extend the budgets?
The vocation of the Government is that the budgets are approved. It makes all the sense in the world that Junts approve budgets drawn up by former minister Giró. For this reason, we appeal to a sense of responsibility, and in this context, Junts cannot shirk the country's responsibility or ignore the fact that these budgets are its main legacy. The best that Junts can do is to consolidate its Govern legacy. They should be satisfied and proud.
If Junts does not approve them, will they choose to seek the support of the PSC?
No scenario can be ruled out, but today it's time to demand a sense of responsibility from Junts.
Will the law of the third sector be approved?
The law is the essential instrument to build the confidence of the third sector and the Government to respond to the country's short- and medium-term problems. Countries that function well have solid public administrations that help strengthen public policies, but there is also a lot of strong civil society articulated.
From the Government has it been criticized that the third sector is not very sensitive in national terms?
I deny it completely. We have a third sector with a deep-rooted country feeling.
