Pedro Sánchez, acting president of Spain, assured yesterday in New York, during his visit for the UN General Assembly, that "the talks can be discreet, but the agreements are transparent".
This is how he responded to Oriol Junqueras, ERC leader, and his statement that the amnesty has already been negotiated. In appearance it did not get wet. He didn't even mention the word amnesty, but his answers hinted that it is possible and that he is open to negotiating with Carles Puigdemont, whose Junts deputies are key to moving forward with his investiture.
"We have always respected the work of justice. But I also say, and I have commented on it, that a political crisis never had to lead to a judicial action and a judicialization". Although there have been several strikes, he assured that the newspaper library supports him. "When the president was Mariano Rajoy and I was the leader of the opposition, at the time when the prosecutor (José Manuel) Maza, now dead, opened the door to all these judicial cases through the National Court, I I conveyed my discomfort to Mr. Rajoy," he emphasized.
"It was a conflict that had a political root", he insisted. "What we have done during these years, with enormous effort and absolute misunderstanding of those who governed Spain when this crisis took place, has been to try to return to politics what never had to leave politics", he clarified.
He accepted that unilateralism is a "debate in which, unfortunately, part of independence is still incorporated". But he raised the question: "The people who support unilateralism in Catalonia?" And the answer was: "It's measured, it's public, says the Catalan CEO, between 10% and 11%." I think that there are 90% of Catalan citizens who tell us that what they want is dialogue, reunion, coexistence and harmony. Without a doubt, this is where the Government of Spain will be."
He continued that "if we want to appeal to the majority to transcend and turn the page, what we have to do is look at this 90%." So, without talking about amnesty or a future government, he recalled his work in recent years. "I can tell you that we will be consistent with what we have done", he explained.
"I see five years in which only apocalyptic prophecies are poured out that are never fulfilled. What if Spain breaks up, what if it collapses, what if the Spanish nation feels attacked in its essence. Nothing is fulfilled", he remarked.
"We took the reins of the country in 2018, a society traumatized by a pain, in 2017, an institutional and constitutional crisis the likes of which had not been experienced in the last 40 years, and the results are visible today. Catalan society has said yes to the policy of reunion that the Government of Spain has promoted for four years, taking risky decisions, often misunderstood, I understand, but which have effectively brought us to a situation of stabilization and of normalization of what is happening and enjoyed by Catalan society", he said.
"Those who were incapable and powerless in the face of this constitutional crisis are the ones who hold me responsible. of what Having stabilized Catalonia? Of the fact that today the first political force in Catalonia is a constitutional force? That Salvador Illa is closer to being president of the Generalitat? The Spanish right must learn a lesson from the July 23 elections".
He stated when he started that this was the moment of Alberto Núñez Feijoo and his false attempt at investiture, "even he doesn't believe it". So unbelievable that the popular leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso (she did not say the name) is already demanding that she call elections.
"I'm saying a lot", he admitted before returning to the UN headquarters.
