Calvo on the dialogue table with the Generalitat: “As soon as we get out of the alarm we will set a date” | Politics

The first vice president of the Government, Carmen Calvo, has said that the Government will reconvene in summer the dialogue table with the Generalitat to address the political conflict in Catalonia: “As soon as we get off the alarm, we will set a date”. “We are not going to let the summer pass without sitting down again to resume a goal in which we deeply believe. We are willing to continue with our commitment,” he said in a interview in ‘La Vanguardia’ this Sunday.

He has defended that listening and talking is part of democracy, also when the political project is not shared: “Everyone knows that there is nothing further from the proposals of the PSOE, the Government of Spain and the president than independence”. Asked why the president of the Generalitat, Quim Torra, has assured that there is not a sufficient climate of trust with the Government to reactivate the table, she has said: “The table was driven by ERC. They are now widely separated from each other. You have to read it in that key “.

Budgets

According to Calvo, the Government will begin to draft the General State Budgets as soon as they have support, because they will not “lead the country to another frustration when it is most necessary to have an economic and tax response to get out of the current situation.” “We have had the capacity to reach agreements with Citizens and at the same time with Esquerra and the PNV“, and has regretted not having been able to dialogue with the PP which, in his words, has made an irrational and harsh opposition.

In his opinion, the PP “forgets that the current political plurality has come to stay”, that there is territorial diversity, nationalist parties and independence in Catalonia.

Pandemic management

In managing the coronavirus pandemic, it has opted to improve and strengthen collaboration in health matters, respecting the regional system: “We want the inter-territorial Health Council, which has generated a culture of very positive political collaboration, to consolidate.” He has said that in the Government there were no divisions when agreeing to confinement, not even in the economic areas, because the minister “Nadia Calviño had the health crisis in her head” although she was concerned about the economy. She does not regret having attended the 8-M demonstration: “What’s more, I want to demonstrate again next year, in the line that touches me, as I have done all my life.”

For her the right makes a “huge mistake” and clumsy when focusing on the 8-M, since at the same time there were mass concentrations and acts and because the Government declared a state of alarm 24 hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus a global pandemic on March 11. “No right wing from any other country has ever thought that the demonstrations that took place around the world on March 8 were the focus of Covid-19. That only happens in Spain,” he lamented.

Asked about the possibility of insubordination in the Civil Guard, after the dismissal of Lieutenant Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos, she said that the Benemérita is a military administration that “runs the Government.”

Generalitat says it has no date for the dialogue table

The spokeswoman for the Catalan Government, Meritxell Budó, assured this Sunday that the Generalitat has no specific date for the meeting of the dialogue table with the Government and that the figure of the mediator is now “more important than ever.” In an interview with Catalunya Radio, Budó has affirmed that the Government has always considered that it is necessary to resolve from the dialogue “what is a political conflict” and that he hopes that there is a “real will” to carry it out.

However, he has shown his skepticism about the real will of the PSOE to advance in the resolution of this political conflict, which is why he considers the figure of the mediator “more important than ever.” He has said that this figure is not a “sine qua non” condition, but he believes that, if there is a will to resolve the conflict, it should be part of the solution and not of the problem.

The councilor has also assured that It has not yet been decided whether the entry of the Barcelona and Lleida health regions to phase 3 will be advanced deconfinement before June 22 if the pandemic evolves in a favorable way, as pointed out yesterday by the Minister of Health. “I do not know that this proposal has passed through the Procicat,” said Budó, and insisted that this week the Government will work on this possibility, but that no decision has yet been made.

Budó has also explained that the President of the Generalitat, Quim Torra, today will ask the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, to comply with all pending commitments with Catalonia, an injection of liquidity and the flexibility of the deficit target. He has said that with a deficit objective of 0.2%, Catalonia cannot meet the expenses incurred by the coronavirus pandemic, about 4,000 million euros, and has asked for “clarity” when it comes to distributing the 16,000 allocated to the autonomies.

Too has criticized the “recentralization” of the Government and considers that the “withdrawal of powers” that has occurred during the state of alarm has been a “mismanagement of the crisis”. Regarding the request for the JxCat spokesperson in Congress, Laura Borràs, to be investigated, Budó has insisted that JxCAT has always supported ERC in “judicialization” cases.

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