The PSOE has launched its own institutional offensive to try to neutralize the PP’s strategy of bringing initiatives to all city councils and regional parliaments against the processing of a hypothetical amnesty law for those convicted and prosecuted for the illegal 2017 independence referendum. In the justification of theirs, which is titled “motion for coexistence in Catalonia”, Pedro Sánchez’s party even goes back to the “Pujol, dwarf, speaks Spanish” with which the electoral victory was “cheered” by José María Aznar in 1996.
“Weeks later, the then leader popular He began to speak Catalan in private after the signing of the Majestic agreements that led to the transfer of copious powers to the Generalitat,” the socialists point out in the explanatory statement, alluding to the pact that was reached with CiU in exchange for support for the investiture. “For the political and media right, this was a pact for the governability praised by land, sea and air, something unprecedented if we take into account that, three years earlier, when Felipe González reached an agreement with Jordi Pujol to form a Government, those same rights accused him of humiliating himself and compromising the interests of Spain to continue in power,” they add.
In the motion, the PSOE also details the concessions that Aznar made in that legislature, among which they cite the transfer of traffic powers, the elimination of civil governors, the transfer of 30% of personal income tax, the transfer of Inem and active employment policies and, they emphasize with particular emphasis, the pardons for 16 members of the terrorist group Terra Lliure. To all this, with a language typical of a political party’s argument rather than an institutional initiative, they add: “White and in a bottle. If the PP agrees to it, it is the responsibility of the State; if the PSOE does it, then Spain is broken with such to stay in power.
The text that they will take to all institutions also refers to the processing of the new Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia and the “tension” to which Mariano Rajoy then “subjected” the relations between this community and the rest of Spain in which places the “beginning of process that has produced so much confrontation and division” and that led to the 1-O. This, they add, is the “sad balance of the rigid action” of the Génova Street party, which they accuse of being “captive of its frontist attitude against some territories, motivated by the spurious desire to obtain better electoral results in other parts of Spain”.
In contrast, the socialists state that after the 2018 motion of censure that brought Sánchez to La Moncloa, a “path of dialogue” began that involved “difficult decisions, such as partial pardons for independence leaders”, but that, they argue, have borne “obvious fruits”, to the point that the situation “is much better today than in 2017.” Based on this argument, their motion literally urges “the new Government of Spain to continue making dialogue, within the constitutional framework, the tool to improve coexistence between Catalans and between them and the rest of Spain.”