Cristina Rubio Barcelona

Barcelona

Updated Monday,15January2024-12:40

  • Society Portrait of the Catalan municipality that radicalised Junts' discourse on immigration
  • Politics Junts insists: "Catalonia must have a state policy on immigration whether it likes it or not"

The Minister of the Interior of the Generalitat, Joan Ignasi Elena, has charged against the "xenophobic positions" of Junts on immigration by calling for the expulsion of those multi-repeat offenders who are in an irregular situation and has directly linked them to the rise of the pro-independence ultra-right of Aliança Catalana, the party of Sílvia Orriols that governs in Ripoll.

"The speech of Jordi Turull – neoconvergent secretary general – is to try to combat the risk that Aliança Catalana and Sílvia Orriols will take votes away from them. What he has achieved is to place Orriols and his discourse at the centre of the debate," said the head of the Interior of the Generalitat in an interview on Catalunya Ràdio.

Elena is referring to the turn of Junts on immigration, a party that has now radicalised its identity discourse and has opened the door to the expulsion of those undocumented and multi-resident immigrants as a result of the Calella case.

A clear and unambiguous criticism that delves into the war between Esquerra and Junts and shows that immigration is one of the great conflicts at the beginning of the year after Carles Puigdemont managed to wrest from Pedro Sánchez the cession of powers for Catalonia in Congress.

In fact, Elena has on several occasions named Sílvia Orriols, the leader of Aliança Catalana who won the Mayor's Office of Ripoll doubling the votes of Junts, a party that had comfortably governed the municipality since 2011. Not only that, the mayor has been fuelling expectations for months of an expansion of her party to compete in the regional elections against Junts and ERC, a factor that the Republicans directly attribute to the neo-convergent discourse.

Orriols' party combines Hispanophobia with an anti-immigration discourse, especially Muslim immigration, and tries to influence the social unrest that exists in Catalonia due to the increase in citizen insecurity with an eye on the Parliament.

ERC accuses Junts of "lying"

"There is a problem with multiple recidivism, but not with immigration. Not because of a good thing, but because it's false. The data vindicate this," said Elena. The leader made use of statistics and explained that only 0.2% of immigrants in Catalonia are in prison and of these, only 20% reoffend when they go out on the street. "The problem is not where people come from."

"There is a problem with the bad legislation of multi-tenantism, which means that people who are arrested 10, 20 or 50 times for stealing and who have hundreds of criminal records do not go to prison," said the leader, former of the PSC and now a member of the ERC Executive.