Coinciding with the King's visit to Barcelona, the acting Minister of the Presidency, the socialist Félix Bolaños, has inaugurated the exhibition Nosaltres les europees, within the framework of the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU, in the Crown Archive of Aragon in the Catalan capital. And, in the midst of negotiations with the Catalan independence movement to try to get a new investiture of Pedro Sánchez on track, once that of Alberto Núñez Feijóo fails, as expected, Bolaños has highlighted “the success” of the Government led by the PSOE, for “ having achieved that the Catalonia of today has finally looked to the future and has overcome the unbearable tension that was suffered in 2017.”
And, without revealing anything about the ongoing conversations with Junts and ERC, or whether he will take advantage of his visit to Barcelona this Monday to meet representatives of these groups, appealing to discretion so as not to blow up a possible investiture agreement before it can materialize, Bolaños has warned that “that is the path we want to walk.” A roadmap whose keys he has listed: “Dialogue, coexistence, agreements between different people, looking to the future, progress and overcoming the unbearable tension of the year 2017.” “Any agreement we reach regarding Catalonia will follow that path, which has been shown to be successful, and which was ratified at the polls on July 23 by Spanish society as a whole and Catalan society in particular,” he highlighted.
“The PSOE is in the agreement, in the pact and in the dialogue. It has always been, and will continue to be, as a guarantee that we are of coexistence in Catalonia and throughout Spain,” Bolaños insisted.
Asked if Carles Puigdemont and Junts should renounce unilateralism so that an investiture agreement can be forged that assumes an amnesty for those accused of the process, the socialist leader recalled, once again, the seriousness of the political conflict in Catalonia that he inherited the progressive Executive of Pedro Sánchez after the mandates of Mariano Rajoy. “A few years ago it was difficult to think that that Catalonia of 2017, 2018 and 2019, where there were illegal referendums and disconnection laws, where companies fled, where there were riots, could become in just a few years a Catalonia of the opportunities, investments, coexistence and dialogue, agreements between different people, respect and looking to the future, trying to overcome once and for all that unbearable tension that we all suffer.”
Waiting for Sánchez's turn to arrive, Bolaños has denounced “the lying investiture” in which Feijóo is embarked. “The problem of the provisional leader of the Popular Party is not having forced a false investiture or not having support to achieve it, his problem really is that he has no project for Spain. His whole project is to provoke, to repeal, to generate hatred among Spaniards,” he criticized.
He has highlighted, on the other hand, that the Government of Spain "is making every effort and every effort, at all levels" to ensure that the request that was submitted last August so that they can be used in the European institutions the co-official languages of Spain. “Castilian is as Spanish as Catalan, Basque and Galician,” he has defended.
Bolaños has also responded to the controversial statements of former mayor Xavier Trias, leader of Junts in Barcelona, who has assured that the PSOE was behind the attempted coup d'état on February 23, 1981. The minister has expressed his respect for “the political figure” of Trias, but has pointed out that these statements of his “have no basis, neither historical nor factual.” “The socialist deputies were hostages, like all the deputies of Congress, in that coup d'état of February 23,” he concluded.
