Salvador Illa responds to Pere Aragonès that the Government will not hold a referendum in Catalonia

The first secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, upon his arrival at an informative breakfast of the Europe Forum, in Madrid Alejandro Martínez Vélez (Europa Press)

The leader of the PSC and head of the opposition in the Parliament, Salvador Illa, has responded this Thursday to

Pere Aragonès, who last Wednesday had insisted in a conference in Madrid on the need to hold a referendum on independence in Catalonia . "There is not going to be a referendum," Illa said from the Europe Forum, also in the state capital. "It is not going to happen because the majority of Catalans do not want it," added the socialist, thus highlighting the distance between the positions that currently coexist at the dialogue table between the two governments and that there is still no date for their next meeting.

The two conferences were only one day apart. In the case of the Republican, it was his coming out of the Club Siglo XXI. “The referendum is necessary. We must dare to propose our proposal to the citizens of Catalonia. Citizens are willing to accept the result of the ballot box. Catalonia's right to self-determination is inevitable ”, the Catalan leader had said, thus insisting on the proposal that the Generalitat brings to the dialogue table. For Aragonès, the defenders of the unity of the State have to "dare" to win democratically at the polls.

Illa took advantage of her speech at the breakfast organized by the New Economy Forum on Thursday to respond to Aragonès and close the door to holding a vote on independence. “Neither referendum nor self-determination nor amnesty. There is not going to be any of this ”, he insisted. The socialist leader has ensured that in Catalonia "there is not and never has been 52% of independentistas", referring to the electoral result of a year ago, where, because of the covid, participation was very low. For him, on the other hand, "there is a majority that wants to leave behind 10 bad years of deterioration in coexistence."

The way to find a new territorial fit, he continued, is "a dialogue without ultimatums, without deadlines, without plan b, co zeta, with respect, with loyalty and a constructive spirit."

He also recalled that Aragonès has rejected his proposal for a dialogue table within Catalonia.

"The more you talk the better, but I want to speak in Catalonia among Catalans", he assured.

The socialist leader wanted to explain his "dialogue and monitoring" opposition task in Catalonia and recalled that his party, as the main force of Parliament, also works to achieve "a pact also for linguistic coexistence", in which the red line is "Castilian is not treated as a foreign language."

"Catalan is an important sign of identity," he stressed.