The Minister of Social Rights of the Generalitat, Carles Campuzano, has become the second of the ERC Government to be disapproved by Parliament. After Joan Ignasi Elena, censured by the Catalan Chamber in November of last year, Campuzano received this Wednesday the parliamentary reproach of the entire opposition, promoted in two motions by PSC-Units and JxCat, for his "partisan" promise to build a Residence in the municipality of Santa Coloma de Gramenet if ERC rules in the city after the 28-M elections.
All the parliamentary groups, except the Republican, have voted in favor of the disapproval of the socialists and post-convergents, so that Campuzano has received parliamentary censure with more forcefulness than the Minister of the Interior in his day, which was possible thanks to the abstention of Together. The 96 votes in favor and 33 against the vote on the Junts motion have been altered in the PSC motion, where four abstentions have been recorded, three from the Vox bench. But the incidence has not altered the disapproval.
The minister's promise, expressed in a pre-campaign video together with the Republican candidate in the city Gabriel Rufián, provoked the ire of Junts, who were the first to demand the appearance of the minister in Parliament to give explanations for his slip. The post-convergents also demanded that the president Pere Aragonès disavow the minister for this, but his refusal pushed the post-convergents to register a parliamentary motion proposing the disapproval of Campuzano, an initiative to which the PSC joined, which presented another motion in which He also promoted his disapproval for an action that in his opinion supposes an "undermining of the institutions of Catalonia and an inappropriate use of the position of Minister of the Generalitat".
Weeks after the controversy broke out, the minister has not yet appeared before the Chamber, where he is scheduled for April 24, a month and a half after the electoral promise was made and four days before the municipal elections.
In the Junts motion, Campuzano's delay in appearing is denounced and it is claimed that the institutional action of the Government "is not subject to electoral calls or partisan objectives." In addition, evidencing the parliamentary weakness of the ERC Executive, the Government is urged to "agree" on the legislative initiatives with the main political actors "before their promotion or their approval in the Consell Executiu", with the aim of "guaranteeing the maximum agreement and broad parliamentary support".
The "unilateral" attitude of the ERC Government alone, evidenced in cases such as the approval of the anti-drought decree, the Mossos reorganization decree, or the clarity agreement led by the president, have evidenced Aragonès's parliamentary weakness and, in On many occasions, they have provoked a joint, and sometimes coordinated, reaction from Junts and PSC, to which ERC has responded by denouncing a "sociovergent clamp".
For its part, the PSC motion is restricted to the management of the Government in the residential area, emphasizing the shortcomings of Catalonia in this matter. The Socialists denounce the lack of planning on the part of the Government for the construction and concertation of places, something that the Minister himself admitted in Parliament, although he assured that it was about to be corrected. The PSC claims in its motion to submit this planning within three months.
They also demand to raise rates by 4% in the entire social sector -with retroactive effect from January 1- to improve the remuneration and working conditions of the professionals who work in it, and in the case of the promised Santa Coloma residence by Campuzano, they demand that the Government build it with a charge to a credit modification in the current budgets of the Generalitat, agreed precisely with the PSC and En Comú Podem.
During the debate on the two motions, all the opposition groups have reproached the minister for his attitude. Junts has denounced the "discretionality" of an "unacceptable promise" and the attitude of the ERC Executive: "Never has a government with so little parliamentary support abused its position of executive power so much to act in electoral terms" and "never has a Government had had so little parliamentary support", warned spokeswoman Mònica Sales.
For his part, the spokesman for the PSC-Units, Raúl Moreno, has accused the Generalitat of spending 10 years without building a single public residence despite having the powers to do so. "They neglect their functions and their powers" and show that "the elderly are not a priority" for the Government, he has denounced. As for the minister, Moreno has criticized his "misuse of office" by "making available to a political force the task of a Government, which should be for everyone." It is, he said, a "clear damage to the institutions for which he has not apologized."
