The possible negotiations with Junts per Catalunya to agree on an investiture continue to dominate the political agenda. One of the last to speak in this regard has been Antoni Castellà, political spokesman for Democrats of Catalonia, deputy of the Junts group in Parliament and spokesman for the Consejo de la República led by Carles Puigdemont, who has challenged the socialist Pedro Sánchez to negotiate " the Catalan Brexit" if he wants to be invested as new president of the Government.
In an interview with the EFE agency, Castellà stated that, although the key to the investiture is in the hands of the seven Junts deputies in Congress, now "the PSOE and PP have the ball in their court." In his opinion, it is his candidates for Moncloa who should say if they are willing to open a negotiation, not on more regional powers, but on the "sovereignty" of Catalonia.
Given the silence that Junts has imposed on itself at the start of the talks, Castellà's is one of the few voices in this political space willing to take a position. This is because, although he is part of the Junts group in Parliament and is a close collaborator of Puigdemont in the Council of the Republic, he has more room for manoeuvre, since his party is Demòcrates, a pro-independence split of the extinct Unió Democràtica .
Castellà belongs to the independence sector that most vehemently claims the validity of the unilateral referendum of October 1, 2017 and that presented itself as a Junts candidate for the Senate in the general elections of July 23.
In his statements, he urged the PSOE to "change the mental framework", warning that Catalonia did not organize 1-O to now negotiate "more competitions or an economic concert", but that "there is a before and after" of 2017. "Any negotiation that has to do with powers we already did with the new Statute", which ended up being cut by the Constitutional Court, he recalled.
The Catalan also assures that, after the general elections of the past 23-J, a "historical negotiation, the most relevant since the Transition" can be opened, in which the independence movement may be willing to discuss "about self-determination and amnesty, the conditions, the terms, how the assets are negotiated, what temporality of co-sovereignty there can be: all this is negotiable”.
On the other hand, in his opinion, Sánchez must be clear that it is not negotiable that "Catalonia is a nation and that its sovereignty rests with the people of Catalonia." “The great underlying discussion is: are you willing to negotiate the Catalan 'Brexit'? We do, but it must be placed in this frame of mind. Any other framework is not acceptable, because it places us before 1-O, and this would not make sense, ”he stressed during his interview.
In addition, faced with the appeals of the socialists to the independence movement to lower their "maximalist" conditions and seek an agreement within the Constitution, he has pointed out that "the constitutional framework is the corset that the PSOE itself imposes." “It is not our problem. I put on the corset of the right to self-determination and amnesty, they put on the corset of the constitutional framework, ”he argued.
In his opinion, the independence movement must be "coherent" with what it has defended during the 23-J campaign and comply with what it has said, without lowering the bar of its conditions. “This will be the test of the cotton to know if the PSOE, the PP, the Crown, the State take seriously that this is a negotiation in terms of geopolitics”, he added.
In his opinion, those from the PSOE and Sumar warn that an electoral repetition would imply giving PP and Vox a second chance to achieve a sufficient majority are the ones who must decide if they prefer to discuss the "recognition of Catalonia as a nation" or "give it an opportunity to the right”.
What is in question is, in his opinion, whether a whole sector of the left prefers a good result from Vox rather than recognizing the Catalan national fact. "This is the reflection that the Spanish left should make," he stressed.
