Barcelona (EFE) public debate, and it has assumed that it was an “error” of the PP in the past to consider the Catalan question as a “chronic problem”.
On the third and last day of the Annual Meeting of the Cercle de Economia in Barcelona, Feijóo, two days after the municipal elections and a month and a half after the general ones, celebrated the “indisputable recovery” of his party in Catalonia, where on 28 May has registered a “hopeful growth”, tripling representation and adding 145,000 votes compared to 2019.
Some results with which he has not been “satisfied”, since he does not want the PP to be “testimonial or an influential minority” in Catalonia, but rather “a government party that connects with a good part of Catalan society”.
new political stage
“If the majority of the citizens want, we are going to open a new Spanish political stage. I want Catalonia to be key in this and that the interests of the majority of Catalans are priority interests of the Government of Spain ”, she assured.
Thus, it has ignored any explicit reference to the independence process and has claimed to be “the party of useful politics”, the one that wants to “return to a policy that overcomes division and confrontation in blocks, groups and territories”.
A policy that “respects and strengthens institutions and does not reward those who degrade it and try to break it” and that places “management as the center of the lives of citizens”, he added.
“There is a latent majority of Catalans who accompany us in our exhaustion and who share the desire for a calm and serene change,” he resolved.
Feijóo has referred, without citing her, to the embezzlement reform agreed with ERC and has bet that “the majority is more interested in how to put public money to good use than how to decriminalize the misuse of public money”.
He has also defended that, “instead of being absorbed in the usual issues carried out by the usual ones”, it is time to talk about “creating employment, investment, legal security and growth”, since “the situation is delicate enough to change of conversation”.
“There is a vast majority of Catalans who are concerned about the economy, infrastructure, solving housing problems with solutions and not with tensions, the sustainability of pensions, the efficient management of public health and security”, he has shown himself convinced in this regard.
“Error” of his party
In the dialogue that he has carried out with the president of the Cercle, Jaume Guardiola, asked about the role that the PP has played in Catalonia, Feijóo has maintained that his party has made “an error” by treating this issue as “an issue that is not could address” and, therefore, as “a chronic problem from the political point of view”.
“That is an error. Catalonia is a basic engine of our country: if Catalonia is not doing well, Spain is not doing well, and vice versa”, she said.
He has also underlined how he, who is Galician, comes from the periphery of Spain, so it is clear to him that “Spain is not what happens in Madrid.”
“Very important things happen, but it is not Spain, it is a part of Spain”, he stressed, before remarking that “Galician and Catalan are Spanish languages” and recalling that he habitually expressed himself in Galician as president of Galicia.
Regarding regional financing, he recalled that the current system was agreed with the tripartite system led by the Socialists in Catalonia and has defended that it is an issue that must be dealt with “honesty”.
“We are going to talk about income and expenses. What we cannot do is force the presidents of the autonomous communities to do magic”, he said after admitting that it would probably be difficult to reach a full consensus on this issue with all the territories.