Government spokesperson: “While Sánchez lives conditioned by the PP and Cs, everything will stay the same”

Spokesperson of the Catalan government, Meritxell Budó, has accused Spanish president Pedro Sánchez of being "conditioned by the opinion of the People’s Party and Ciutadans regarding the territorial debate" and regretted that, while this situation lasts, "with much probability, everything will stay the same."

In an interview with the Catalan News Agency (ACN,) she criticized that ever since the rise of Sánchez to power, "nothing has changed and nothing suggests things will change."

"We’re still in the same situation as a year ago and as when we made the motion of no confidence," said the Junts per Catalunya politician, who sees "very little" willingness for dialogue on the part of the Socialist leader.

"For us, we remain open to dialogue, with or without a mediator, or with whoever they want to consider," said the Government spokesman, who also considers that the document that came from the meeting between Sánchez and Catalan president Quim Torra at the Palau de Pedralbes in Barcelona is a "starting point," that the Socialist "decided to break, hijacked by the PP and Cs."

Budó has indicated that Pedro Sánchez was to blame for his investiture failure in July for "his irresponsibility and inability" to reach agreements. She recalled that her party, JxCat, was open to an abstention that would facilitate the Socialist's investiture, and even to potentially vote 'yes' to Sánchez, but emphasized that the behavior of the Spanish government leader made him impossible to support for the Catalan party. 

Budó said that both JxCat and ERC gave a "blank check" to Sánchez "thinking that something would change" with respect to the previous Spanish government, led by the People’s Party and Mariano Rajoy, but she expressed her bitter disappointment that there are still politicians in prison and exiled "suffering a repression that has not stopped and continues."

She predicted a "very tough" sentence for those tried in the Catalan Trial, facing prison sentences for their roles in the independence push in autumn 2017. She, therefore, called on the independence camp to be united and explained that she is trying to bring all sides together from her ministry position. 

"More than ever, we have to realize that when we were able to do something, it was only when we did it together," she reflected. This unit, she says, needs to "find a common goal" between all the different pro-independence voices.