PSOE’s leader will not offer a referendum in exchange for his investiture, says Puigdemont

The Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, stated on Thursday that he does not believe the leader of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), Pedro Sanchez, will offer a referendum on independence in Catalonia in order to be invested as Spanish President. ‘He hasn’t already done so and the (PSOE) backbenchers are already warning him. Maybe he has the will, we don’t know, but if he has it, this will cause him problems, and perhaps his party will block the opportunity to do so’, said the Catalan President. During an interview with the comedian and TV producer Andreu Buenafuente, Puigdemont stressed the ‘slowness’ of the state, and recalled that ‘when Spain became aware that it had to make an offer of independence to Cuba it was already too late, Cuba was already on the threshold of independence’. The Catalan President also insisted that the Spanish Government must recognise what is happening in Catalonia in order to start negotiations.

In the same vein, the General Coordinator of the Catalan Democratic Party (PDC), Marta Pascal, stated that the referendum is a ‘red line’. ‘We will not sit at the negotiation table unless the referendum issue is solved’, Pascal said, while stressing that there will be ‘no chance’ to debate Sánchez’s investiture if Catalonia’s right to a referendum is not recognised.

All the pressure the PSOE backenchers are putting on Pedro Sánchez make the Catalan President think that the offer will not occur, because ‘no leader capable of governing is willing to make this gesture’, he said and added that the gesture didn’t arrived in past occasions either. Puigdemont cited the example of Cuba and pointed out that the Spanish state ‘has not changed much’ since then and remains ‘slow and antiquated’.

Besides this, Puigdemont stressed that Catalonia will have to follow the road map to independence no matter what. ‘Those people who still have doubts have to understand that if on the other side they are persistently doing nothing’, he said in reference to the absence of an offer from the state, ‘we will have to move on regardless’. ‘What we cannot do is ‘if the other side says no’, just go back home’, the Catalan President claimed.

Puigdemont stressed that there is pressure from the street and the ballot boxes, and stated that the Catalan government ‘cannot ask Catalan society to wait longer’, ‘because meanwhile the country is falling’.

The Catalan President acknowledged that since the radical left CUP decided to table an amendment to the entire draft budget, the Catalan Government has been in a difficult situation, but said that he hopes to regain the trust of the CUP to complete the process. The Catalan President will have to face a vote of confidence in the Catalan Parliament on the 28th of September.