"The separatist process, part two: What now?" With this title, the president of the PP of Catalonia, Alejandro Fernández, offered a conference this afternoon at the Grand Marina hotel in Barcelona in which he was finally able to explain the reasons that led him to oppose from the beginning any approximation of his party to Junts to explore the possible support of the party led by Carles Puigdemont for the investiture of Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
This positioning contrary to the strategy of the national leadership has not had the support of the majority of the Catalan leaders of the PP, upset that Fernández resorted to social networks to show his criticism at a time when his leadership is in question. Only the deputy Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo showed in public her support for the leader of the popular ranks in the Parliament.
So this Thursday, beyond knowing his recipes for the “breakdown of coexistence, economic deterioration and institutional erosion” that he blames on the independence movement, interest has focused on knowing who supported Fernández in his challenge to Génova. And except for the deputy in Congress Llanos de Luna and Fernández's colleagues in the Parliament, Lorena Roldán and Daniel Serrano, no heavyweight of the Catalan PP has been seen in the auditorium. The crisis is now irreparable.
In any case, the conference has served to learn more about Fernández's ideas, who considers that the "Catalan process" has now definitively become the "Spanish process" and that this second phase will have the same effects as the first: the breakdown of coexistence, economic deterioration and institutional erosion not only in Catalonia, but in Spain as a whole.
For Fernández, the PP's response to said process must be "absolute firmness" in the face of what may happen and, in this sense, he has criticized the "wobbles" or "hesitations" that have occurred and could continue to occur. "It would be a serious mistake," he stated, even though he was aware that after the initial steps towards Junts, the demand for an amnesty by the pro-independence forces has been accepted by the PP as an absolutely non-negotiable red line.
"I fully share my party's announcement to, in the short term, use all the instruments of the rule of law to stop the amnesty," Fernández stated before the expectant audience. Even so, the president of the PP of Catalonia has expressed concern about what may happen in the medium and long term, that is, the project proposed by the conservative party for the Spain of the future: "We have to be able to give a response solid, not conjunctural reaction to the main problem of Spain, the second transition of the territorial question".
For Fernández, the model that the PP must follow cannot be "neither the suppression of autonomies and the illegalization of the independence parties advocated by Vox, nor the Ibarretxe bis plan proposed by Lehendakari Iñigo Urkullu, of the PNV, who represents the dismantling of the State". For the parliamentary leader of the PP in Catalonia, both approaches are outside the Constitution, which is why he proposes as an antidote "the strengthening of the State in Catalonia" and "an autonomous system loyal to Spain": the democratic refoundation of the Generalitat of Catalonia would be the first and "essential" step.
To explore it, Fernández is committed to the reactivation of Catalan constitutionalism: "Once again, they intend to use us as a bargaining chip," he lamented. And he has taken the opportunity to once again demand an organically autonomous PP of Catalonia, "without tutelage" from the national leadership and capable of developing its own project without interference. "It is the best way to better serve Catalonia to the rest of Spain," stated Fernández. "What they reproach us for is not for coddling ERC or Junts, but for Catalan constitutionalists always paying the perks of the insatiable nationalist bourgeoisie," he exclaimed to cheers.
"The pardons were unthinkable and after a week the socialists were already talking about detente, pacifying Catalan society, etc. In three months people bought their merchandise and now they are doing the same with the amnesty," argued Fernández, whose diagnosis is that the "Spanish process" has reached "cruising speed" and must be stopped. "The amnesty is a humiliation to the Catalan constitutionalists who paid a high price in 2017 for defending the unity of Spain," he stated.
Faced with the "propaganda campaigns of the left", Fernández has defended that "Spain is a tolerant and free nation" on issues such as immigration, feminism or LGTBI rights, and on the other hand "separatism occupies public space and fails to comply rulings on educational rights, in addition to attacking symbols that represent everyone. "That is the real danger we have in Spain, and especially in Catalonia," he proclaimed.
In the absence of ringleaders, among the public, who received Fernández hailing him as "president!" and made up of about two hundred people who have exceeded the organization's forecasts and have made it necessary to place additional chairs on the margins, which even so have not been enough, there were some deputy secretaries of the regional executive and councilors and intermediate positions. of the PP, such as the former deputy in the Parliament and former president of the Catalan Civil Society (SCC) Fernando Sánchez Costa, as well as representatives of various constitutionalist civic associations; Anna Grau, Ciudadanos deputy in the Parliament, and Manuel Milián Mestre, historic founder of the PP.
