Ferran Bel (Tortosa, 1965), a PDECat deputy in Congress, is out of politics mode unless circumstances take him another way. In this legislature he has become the centered voice of Catalan nationalism in the tumultuous Spanish politics. The three budgets of Pedro Sánchez have been approved with his votes.
“There are those who criticize us for doing what was previously called the peix al cove, which is actually the will to agree. The truth is that I don't see any other way to do things. Either this or absolute irrelevance."
Jordi Pujol said that Catalonia has a very difficult path to independence and, at the same time, it has an enormous capacity to destabilize the Spanish chessboard.
Some argue that this destabilizing capacity must be used. But you have to know why you do it. If in the end you do not reach your goal, as has happened with the independence of Catalonia, that instability ends up harming the living conditions of Catalan men and women, and their companies. For this reason, as far as possible, agreements are necessary, especially in a crisis situation.
You are a deputy for the PDECat from which four deputies from Junts per Catalunya split. Their trajectories have been opposite.
The Junts group in Congress, for the purposes of results, proposals and realities, is the closest thing to the CUP. A party that has decided that in the Spanish Parliament it should not agree on anything at all. I think it is an erroneous strategy... Someone may have the feeling that if the government falls, independence is closer, but governments are one thing and states are another.
The State is above successive governments.
That is so... If someone guaranteed me that by voting against the Government, not approving anything and not agreeing to anything, Catalonia would be independent after five months or five years, I could understand it. Now, at this time, and as long as circumstances do not change, despite the fact that given the possibility of opening a window to independence, a government of the PP and the Socialist Party may be similar, the day-to-day reality is that it is not the same a government of the Popular Party and Vox as a government of the Socialist Party and Unidas Podemos And that does not mean that they will authorize the referendum or give you amnesty...
Is PDECat open to welcoming back those Junts militants who might feel more comfortable in their strategy?
It's not so much that he comes to my house or I go to his. What is evident is that over the next few months, I am not saying the next few years, a political space must be built that can be pro-sovereignty, pro-independence, that has a vision of society from the perspective of the center, the center-right or the center-left, with all the nuances of an economic or social nature, and that has a realistic position of doing politics with the circumstances that surround it and aiming to improve the living conditions of citizens. Here we could share a political project with some colleagues who are in Junts per Catalunya? Definitely. Some even express it publicly and it is true that Junts is now a very heterogeneous conglomerate without a very fixed course beyond working for independence for tomorrow or the day after tomorrow... They have now made a decision that goes in the absolutely opposite direction to this idea: to leave the Government and, what is from my point of view more complicated, some of those who, to all of our knowledge, defended, until the day of the consultation, staying in the Government now justify having left.
So, in the general elections –not the municipal ones– will there be an option like the one you propose?
Sure. It cannot be that this realistic vision ends up being represented by the Esquerra Republicana, which legitimately has a strategy and an ideological vision that is very leaning to the left.
You want to be the moderate Catalan party.
Moderate… I don't know what it means to you. For me it is a center party that is very concerned about productive activity and that has a social sensitivity. That at the time had been perfectly represented by Convergència i Unió. Without demonizing large companies, I believe that it must exist and it will exist and it is true that in the last elections Junts capitalized on the electoral results due to inertia and the tradition of some leaders, but as time goes by I believe that the People will wonder: Hey, what do you give me? If you have decided to be outside the Government of the Generalitat and leave it in the hands of the Esquerra, if you have decided that you do not want to agree with the socialist party because they are from 155 or for whatever reason and do not want to negotiate anything in Madrid, How would you improve people's lives? I think there is a space that we have to capitalize on. PDECat is currently doing it. Some say that this is a defeatist discourse. Maybe, but accept reality and that works in the world of business, in politics...
And this party has to be built from the PDECat?
All this space, if it has been characterized by something, has been its constant fragmentation. Parties, small games, initiatives have come out, all well-intentioned, each with its characteristics. And it is time to meet again, even with the Junts colleagues who took the well-intentioned option thinking that this would be a tool they could control and in the end they cannot control it, surely the most pragmatic thing is to find ourselves in a new house in which each one gives up his house to be in the house of another. But I believe that all this is instrumental. It would be pretentious to say that all this has to be built around the PDECat. I would be wrong. Perhaps it is not so much a question of building around what as of having a clear project, a clear ideology and the instrument is the least of it.
