Article published at Catalan News Agency, 8th June 2016
Photo. ‘Junts Pel Sí’ members met this Wednesday after CUP confirmedt their veto on the budget for 2016 (by ACN)
Barcelona (CNA).- The agreement between pro-independence forces ‘Junts Pel Sí’ and radical left CUP, through which the lattercommitted “not to vote the same way as those forces who don’t support Catalonia’s pro-independence roadmap when the parliamentarian stability is at risk” is broken, according to theCatalan President Carles Puigdemont. However, he nuanced that this doesn’t mean that the current term of office is over. Puigdemont made this statement during a meeting with ‘Junts Pel Sï’ group held this Wednesday, right after CUP confirmed their veto on the bill for 2016. A decision which, according to Puigdemont “marks a turning point” and forces the executive of ‘Junts Pel Sí’ to rule in minority from now on, with only the 62 MPs from the cross-party list present in the 135-seat Catalan Chamber.
In a similar vein, Catalan Government spokeswoman, Neus Munté, warned that CUP’s decision “will have consequences” and accused the radical lefties of not fulfilling the agreement. On the other side, CUP MP, Eulàlia Reguant insisted that the amendment wanted to make clear the party’s will to continue working alongside the Catalan Government and ‘Junts Pel Sí’”.
The other groups in the Catalan Chamber also reacted to CUP’s veto on the draft budget for 2016 and what some of them assume as the failure of the pro-independence forces’ agreement.
‘Ciutadans’: Pro-independence proposal “didn’t have any content”
Spanish Unionist ‘Ciutadans’, the main party in the opposition, accused the Catalan executive of “lying to the citizens” since the budget and the whole pro-independence roadmap “wasn’t a future proposal but a proposal without content”, stated Ciutadans’ leader in the Catalan Chamber, Inés Arrimadas. She also lamented that the Government “left the most important decisions in the hands of CUP” and urged the Catalan executive to “do politics again and bring back common sense”.
In a similar vein, ‘Ciutadans’ MP Antonio Espinosa described the current situation as “the last acts of a comedy which is about to finish” and lamented that the Government’s swerve to the left forced them to “reach agreements with only pro-independence forces”. “Praying to the devil usually carries bad consequences”, he stated.
PPC: Puigdemont must call for elections or assume that the process is dead
Read the full article here.