Íñigo Errejón (Madrid, 40 years old) becomes Sumar's parliamentary spokesperson just six months after the general elections of 23-J and after the failed vote in Congress on the amnesty law.
The deputy asks Junts to “take charge” of the “democratic” effort that the Government is making with this rule.
Among his immediate tasks, he prepares the political document for the first assembly of the organization led by Yolanda Díaz.
Ask.
Is the legislature in danger?
Answer.
No, but it is not advisable to stretch too much.
It is not in danger because no one has a better alternative, but it cannot continue to depend on last-minute improvisations or tiny, partisan calculations.
The legislature began because there was a defensive majority, which prevented a right-wing government with the extreme right.
But it's not enough.
Our main task is to move from the defensive majority to one in favor that has a shared agenda.
You cannot be legislating or negotiating all the time at the last minute.
Q.
And how do you get out of this mess?
Is it acceptable to amnesty charges of terrorism?
A.
Two months ago, José María Aznar said that “he who can do something should do it.”
It was an order for the entire reactionary bloc, which is not only the PP and Vox, but a conglomerate present in the economic power, in the media, in many sectors of power of the State, and that has the notion that the State belongs to it. The good way or the bad way.
Some of its mechanisms are that a judge spends months with an instruction without seeing terrorism at all and that when the legislators who have been voted in to make the laws begin to process a law, they discover that it is a case of terrorism that a man He had a heart attack at the airport.
There is clearly an offensive against popular sovereignty.
The amnesty law has to be solid and impeccable because it will be looked at with a magnifying glass.
What we voted on yesterday [Tuesday] met those requirements and we agreed 99%.
I don't understand that there is 1% that causes that opportunity to be lost.
Now it returns to committee and we have to work seriously and with imaginative solutions.
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Íñigo Errejón, new spokesperson for Sumar in Congress, replacing Marta Lois
Q.
Do you then see room for agreement?
A.
The Government is making a very important democratic effort.
We have always defended that it could not be that for having opened a school or for participating in protests some people could end up in prison.
We are taking a democratic path and normalizing the political situation, an effort by the Government and progressive Spanish society.
Junts has to take charge of this effort and that the opportunities must be taken advantage of.
Q.
And doesn't it take a lot of effort to give the impression of being at the mercy of Junts' mood swings?
A.
The Government yesterday [on Tuesday] did not give that image, rather it stated a firm position, which was also already negotiated with the independence groups.
The sectors of the judiciary that wanted the law not to pass managed to put a small obstacle in the way of the development of a legislature of social and plurinational advancement.
It seems like bad news to me, also for the hundreds of citizens who are going to be amnestied in Catalonia.
But it's not tragic either.
We must work responsibly and with a long view, beyond party interests.
Because, does anyone believe that the return to the policies of punishment and revenge is going to improve the relationship between Catalonia and Spain?
Q.
At times it seems that the seven Junts deputies have more capacity for influence than Sumar.
What room do they have to negotiate their positions?
There is a new discrepancy with the expansion of the Barajas airport.
A.
There is a normal operating principle, which is that each ministry takes care of the responsibilities of its ministry.
When Transport bets on a model of the culture of hitting the ball, of macro-infrastructures, instead of dealing with investments that are more useful for the Spanish... Minister [Óscar] Puente said that if I thought we could go to Hong Kong or to Buenos Aires by train, well man, obviously not, you can go to Hong Kong and Buenos Aires by plane from Barajas.
You cannot be legislating all the time at the last minute
Q.
Were you surprised by that reaction?
A.
I didn't expect it, because we are talking about a serious thing that cannot be aired with a little joke on Twitter.
The problem for the Spanish is not that, it is that if someone from Badajoz who works or studies in Madrid has to return to Badajoz, they have an odyssey by train.
It seems good to us to have a Government that goes to international summits to show off its environmentalist position, but the environmentalist position has to be realized later here at home.
We make two things compatible: full loyalty to the Government and, at the same time, marking with good tone, but with great firmness in ideas, positions on things that we do not share.
We have been in practice for two months of the legislature.
We have raised the minimum wage by 5% for two and a half million workers, we have proposed the reduction of the working day, that we must expand the portfolio of public health services to include glasses, contact lenses, oral health and we want expand mental health.
For two months, we clearly have a leading position.
Iñigo Errejón, this Wednesday in the Congress of Deputies.
Alvaro Garcia
Q.
To build the majority in favor, which I said at the beginning, does the incorporation of Junts complicate Sumar's objectives in the socioeconomic aspect?
A.
It certainly makes negotiations and agreements more difficult.
What happens is that it is what the Spaniards have voted for, a reflection of what our country is now and with those oxen we have to plow.
I think that agreements can be reached, that among Junts voters there are also people who prefer to have half an hour more free to do the shopping and not have to concentrate everything in the department stores on Saturdays, to be with their partner, to see more to their children or to play sports.
Q.
You take the lead as spokesperson for a broad coalition of parties, among which is IU.
In Podemos he was never in favor of allying with them, has his position changed at all?
A.
Spain has changed, because we are talking about a time span of a decade.
On 23-J we saved the game by the skin of our teeth and thanks to an important exercise of generosity.
We managed to bring together political forces with different trajectories so that there would be a progressive Government in Spain and not an anti-egalitarian, reactionary and dedemocratizing involution.
A decade ago, the transformative positions were rather on the offensive in cultural-intellectual terms and a decade later we are in a moment of certain disenchantment with politics.
Q.
Do you feel that this appointment is a kind of restitution for you?
A.
No, no.
The issues of the past are generally not resolved in the future.
And Sumar is not here to solve decade-old issues.
Q.
How has your political conception changed since your first stage as spokesperson?
A.
In what not... The main one, in the management of a different relationship with time and with haste.
10 years ago we were in a hurry and hurry is sometimes linked to impetus and audacity and that is fine, but we have learned that there are very important things that are done at a slower pace and that are done with a different management of expectations, of the differences.
We have just opened the social dialogue table for the reduction of working hours.
We want that table to go quickly, it will turn out well, but it requires a lot of slow work, which cannot be seen.
Q.
One of the roles of the parliamentary spokesperson is also to negotiate with other groups. Does your profile facilitate agreements with Podemos?
A.
Yes, we have to negotiate with all the parliamentary groups in a very fragmented Parliament and we are going to continue doing it as before.
We will be able to continue understanding with everyone.
Q.
Is there anything left from the first Podemos in which you participated?
A.
There remains one organization and, therefore, the evaluations of that organization must be made by that organization.
Spanish politics today is also different because of the things that happened 10 years ago and have contributed to positive and very important political changes.
In Podemos there remains an organization.
The evaluations on it must be done by the organization.
Q.
You are in charge, together with Marta Lois, of preparing Sumar's political document.
What has been your reflection as leader of Más País to end up in such a relevant position in this project?
A.
The document is a first preparation in a moment of uncertainty, of crisis on the horizon, in which it seems that the left everywhere is in a defensive position.
We want to give horizon again and for us that horizon has a clear word, democracy, to be a force for democracy.
At Más País we feel completely comfortable in Sumar and therefore we have to pitch in like everyone else.
When you find complete harmony in ideas, acronyms matter less.
Yolanda Díaz and Íñigo Errejón, in Congress on December 5. Claudio Álvarez
Q.
And organically, doesn't Más País make sense anymore?
A.
The destination horizon is Sumar.
I respect that there are political formations that want to participate while maintaining their political and organic perimeter.
Sumar needs those political organizations and those political organizations need Sumar.
We have to work cooperatively.
In our case, the reflection has been that we must focus on building the Sumar movement because Sumar has to be and will be the sum of the parts and something more.
Q.
What is Sumar going to be: a party, a coalition, a federation of parties...?
R.
Sumar has been an electoral coalition that has allowed there to be a Government.
Now it has to be built as a political force that can accommodate citizens who do not come from a partisan affiliation and that can accommodate parties that want to continue maintaining their organizational perimeter.
We have to put the two things together.
From Más País we feel comfortable in Sumar.
When you find harmony of ideas, acronyms matter less”
Q.
Is there room in Galicia for another ballot to the left of the PSOE?
A.
There always has been.
Every time things have been done well, it has manifested itself.
There has been in the last general elections.
Q.
But now there are two: Podemos is on one side and you are on the other.
A.
But there has been.
In the general elections we won in votes, not in seats, due to the provincial distribution that overrepresents the less populated provinces, but in the general elections the progressive vote won in Galicia.
What does that mean?
That if Galicia votes as it voted in July, there is a progressive Government in the Xunta.
03:26
Errejón, again spokesperson for the party on the left of the PSOE
Íñigo Errejón, in the Congress of Deputies, during the interview.Photo: ÁLVARO GARCÍA |
Video: EPV
Q.
If Sumar does not enter Parliament, would the project be affected?
R.
Sumar is within the Galician Parliament.
It is simply necessary for Galicians to go to vote.
Q.
Internally, is there any need for self-criticism after the Podemos rank and file have decided not to go with you?
R.
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The other party decided its position and we did what we could.
In any case, the polls that came out later show that our emergence in the campaign is the decisive factor so that in Galicia there can be a Government that will be a collaboration between three progressive forces to which we contribute a difference: a force
who dares and who is serious and does it.
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