If the electoral calendar is already a blow to the proposed clarity agreement, Pere Aragonès only needed the new rejection of Moncloa to leave the proposal on assisted breathing. At the Palau de la Generalitat they are aware that the initiative has few ballots to go ahead, but they aspire to give it shape with a Catalan consensus at least this 2023. And if, by some chance, after the general elections ERC is once again decisive in investing Pedro Sánchez, take advantage of the opportunity, as it already happened after the general elections at the end of 2019 and the dialogue table.
At the moment, as already happened in September of last year, when Aragonès made public his intention to address the clarity agreement to lay the foundations for a referendum, the Central Government's answer has been a no without leaks .
First, by the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero. "With President Pedro Sánchez there will be no self-determination referendum", he replied before reaffirming his position assuring that this type of consultation "goes against the Constitution". In addition, he accused the president of the Generalitat of maneuvering to distract attention.
Then it was the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, who closed the door. He showed all his respect, but limited the activation of the clarity agreement in Catalonia to electoral issues. "Without a doubt [we will not study] any proposal that is a return to the past, that divides Catalan society, that tensions the Catalans, that chronicles a conflict, that returns to that loop in which Catalonia was for so many years, which meant a lost decade for the Catalans", he concluded.
Aragones replied calmly. He recalled that "all negotiations begin with a no". He assured that his bet is a "democratic solution in which the majority of Catalan citizens feel represented".
The president allows himself to say these words if he remembers the Sant Esteve speech of 2021. He then maintained that 2022 should be the year that the negotiation with the Spanish Government "begins to bring tangible results". The Penal Code was amended.
All in all, the head of the Catalan Executive has it quite complicated. Not even Junts and the CUP are willing to take the direction of the clarity agreement. Nor the Catalan National Assembly (ANC).
The proposal, moreover, is being used as a rebuttal by the PP against the PSOE for its electoral campaign. The General Secretary of the People's Party, Cuca Gamarra, yesterday demanded Pedro Sánchez to make a statement. He spread the shadow of suspicion over the central government because, as he said, the socialists and the Left "are partners" and the president "depends on them". "They are guaranteeing that Pedro Sánchez is president of the Government of Spain in exchange for facilitating this path so that they can achieve what the legal system does not allow them", he stressed.
The leader of the PP in Catalonia, Alejandro Fernández, also had his say. Sánchez's agreements with Catalan and Basque "separatism" "are not an entelechy, they are no joke, they are real, they are tangible and they are worrying", he added. "Separatism demanded pardons, they were granted; demanded the suppression of the crime of sedition, it was granted; he demanded the reform of embezzlement, it was given; demanded the exit of the CNI of Catalonia, it was also granted; demanded from the Government of Spain its inhibition when complying with the linguistic judicial rulings, and the Government of Spain inhibited itself", he stated.
