Junts calculates that in July Puigdemont could return to Spain while warning: "Now we are going for self-determination"

Victor Mondelo Barcelona

Alvaro Carvajal Madrid

Barcelona

Madrid

Updated Thursday, March 7, 2024-11:15

Junts has been quick to deny the PSOE and clarify that the Amnesty Law is not going to seek social reconciliation in Catalonia by settling the secessionist claims of its promoters.

The general secretary of the

neoconvergent

formation ,

Jordi Turull

, has been explicit when stating this Thursday: "We have the amnesty, now we are going for self-determination."

The

number two

of the party led by

Carles Puigdemont

, who has piloted the negotiations to design the grace measure together with the PSOE, has alerted the socialists that "this law does not solve the political conflict between Catalonia and the State."

"Our goal of achieving independence is still as alive as 1-O itself," Turull explained, already back in political life after suffering a heart attack 11 days ago.

The nationalist recalled that the investiture agreement already provided that the amnesty was only the starting point to begin that "historic" negotiation that Puigdemont wants to establish with the PSOE through its clandestine meetings held abroad and supervised by the Salvadoran mediator.

Conversations that the heirs of Convergència hope will culminate in an agreement to hold an independence referendum endorsed by the State.

Likewise, Turull has warned

Pedro Sánchez

not to take Junts' support for the General State Budgets for granted.

«With the Budgets, counter at zero.

"This is going to the point," he warned to anticipate another tough negotiation with the Government.

Puigdemont, return and candidate

Puigdemont's right-hand man has taken for granted that the rule currently being processed in Congress should allow the near return to Spain of the former president of the Generalitat who escaped from the Spanish Justice, considering that Judge

Pablo Llarena

"will have to lift "precautionary measures against Puigdemont" in application of the norm.

"From there, it is the

president

's decision to return," said Turull, who has calculated that the fugitive could return in July if he so wishes.

The general secretary of Junts has guaranteed that Puigdemont will be his party's candidate in the next European elections and has hoped that he will also end up becoming his presidential candidate for the Generalitat when the Catalan regional elections are held, scheduled, at the latest, for February 2025. .

ERC insists: "It is a starting point"

From the Congress of Deputies, ERC has warned that the Amnesty Law "is not a full stop", but rather "a starting point to begin the second phase of negotiation of the political conflict" with the Government.

Where it is, although he has not mentioned it on this occasion, the self-determination referendum.

Deputy

Teresa Jordà

has stressed that the amnesty "is not going to end the repression" but that it helps the independence movement to face this next phase of negotiation because it "puts it on equal terms."

In her opinion, the final text is "robust", "solid" and "has the necessary legal certainty to cover all people."

About a thousand, she has encrypted, including Puigdemont or Rovira.

For ERC, the law that passed in January already met that objective and had "the standards of European and constitutional justice", which is why it regretted that a month and a half had been "lost" by Junts.

Likewise, and facing the legislature, Jordà has pointed out that the amnesty and the General State Budgets are different things and has ordered the PSEO to fulfill the "commitments" with ERC if it wants the accounts to go ahead with its votes.

What's more, he has stressed that the budgets of Catalonia and the State are "different folders", and that the pact with the PSC to release the former does not lead to consensus for the latter.

Also from Congress, the spokesperson for Junts,

Miriam Nogueras

, has evaluated the agreement minutes before the Justice Commission, pointing out that it will prevent judges from "fabulating" with terrorism, from "twisting" the law.

In her opinion, "it is not terrorism to exercise the right to demonstrate."

The Junts spokesperson in Congress has assured that this is a "comprehensive" law, which affects "everyone" and that it will be "immediately applicable."

Something that she has stressed did not happen with the previous ruling, which she dropped in January.

In her opinion, if a judge does not apply the amnesty in the way she has described, he will be prevaricating.

Nogueras has left a clear message to the Government about what is coming.

"Amnesty is one thing and the State Budget is another," he said.

Therefore, Junts will once again tighten the screws on the Executive to give it its decisive seven votes to approve the public accounts.