Barcelona (EFE).- The president of Junts, Laura Borràs, has warned the PSOE that her party “will not lower” its conditions for an investiture of Pedro Sánchez, which go through self-determination and amnesty, and has urged ERC to “join forces” in the Congress of Deputies, through a joint independence group.
In statements on TV3, the leader has made clear the party’s priorities, which include recovering a “strategic direction” of the independence movement and “unity on the Madrid front”, as well as a negotiation table with the State that addresses an “amnesty and self-determination” of Catalonia.
“You cannot deny the problem,” Borràs warned the PSOE, and stressed that Junts “will not lower” those conditions for an eventual investiture. “We have not come to lower anything, but to get everything. We would be wrong if we started the negotiation lowering something”.
On whether the demand for amnesty could translate into an early pardon for former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, Borràs has been blunt: “This is not about personal solutions. We are in a conflict that the State maintains with Catalonia and we want to resolve it”.
Asked on the other hand if the Socialists have contacted them, Borràs has suggested that “now we are in post-electoral contacts”, although he has pointed out that “if the PSOE wants to start negotiations, it knows exactly which way to do it, by which channel and which people”.
But he has prescribed “discretion” for “high-level” negotiations like these, also if those talks with Sumar take place. “The approaches or contacts must take place outside the media focus.”
Nor has he wanted to comment on whether these contacts with the PSOE should translate into a meeting in Waterloo between Sánchez and Puigdemont: “We have not discussed these issues now. If there are approaches, they will be done with the utmost discretion, but everything that has been denied up to now must be addressed.”
“A few weeks ago it was said that Puigdemont is an anecdote,” he said, alluding to Sánchez’s words. “Well, it turns out that now it is not so much. Puigdemont is the legitimate president of the country and is in exile for an anti-democratic attitude of the State. The resolution of the political conflict will mean resolving the situation that has not been addressed up to now or has been done tangentially”.
Finally, Borràs has stressed that “the moment is key because the independence movement and Junts is the one who can give governability to the State” and, for this reason, he has called on ERC to “bring closer positions and join forces”, which could translate, he stressed, into a joint “independence group” in the Congress of Deputies.