‘No’ to supporting Sánchez’s budget

Whether Pedro Sánchez’s bud­get passes is up to the ERC and PDe­CAT par­ties in Madrid, but Car­les Puigde­mont and Quim Torra will “side with the par­lia­men­tary groups that have pub­licly stated they will vote against,” in the words of the exile. The 130th and 131st Cata­lan pres­i­dents met yes­ter­day in the House of the Re­pub­lic in Wa­ter­loo, Bel­gium, to analyse the new po­lit­i­cal term, show sup­port for the po­lit­i­cal pris­on­ers, and in­sist on not sup­port­ing the So­cial­ist gov­ern­ment’s bud­get, “as the ERC and PDe­CAT par­lia­men­tary groups have re­it­er­ated,” said Torra.

Both lead­ers share doubts about the bud­get promises made by the Span­ish gov­ern­ment, given its track record of fail­ing to ho­n­our such pledges in the past, yet they con­tinue to de­mand a ges­ture from La Mon­cloa re­gard­ing the pris­on­ers and a po­lit­i­cal pro­posal al­low­ing Cata­lans to ex­er­cise their right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion.

Mil­lions of extra euros, im­prove­ment plans for the rail sys­tem, spend­ing… “There are no lack of bud­get promises, what is miss­ing is their ex­e­cu­tion,” said Puigde­mont, who backs his PDe­CAT party’s re­fusal to sup­port the bud­get, al­though he also said it would de­pend on how the pro-in­de­pen­dence par­ties in Madrid de­cide to act. On De­cem­ber 20, PDe­CAT passed a res­o­lu­tion say­ing it would “vote against the state bud­get in the Span­ish cham­bers in which the De­mo­c­rat Party has a pres­ence as long as there are pris­on­ers and ex­iles.” Yes­ter­day, ERC also called for a ges­ture by Sánchez if he wanted its sup­port.

It is pos­si­ble that Puigde­mont will re­turn to the issue of the bud­get on Mon­day, when the PDe­CAT lead­er­ship will visit him in Wa­ter­loo, al­though with the Crida Na­cional per la República move­ment, the up­com­ing mu­nic­i­pal and Eu­ro­pean elec­tions, and the trial of the in­de­pen­dence lead­ers, the agenda will be packed.