Eulàlia Reguant: “If someone has not complied with the investiture agreement, it is the Government”

How long has it been since they spoke to the Government?

We have not met for two weeks, since before we decided to ratify the amendment in full. Beyond some crossed messages there have been no more conversations.

ERC and JxCat approved the renewables decree with the ‘comuns’ on Wednesday. Have they replaced the CUP as partners of the Government?

We have discussed from the beginning that we should be the Government’s priority partner. We understood that in the great debates, the majorities that have interested the Government have been drawn depending on the moment to carry out their proposals. In the general policy debate, for example, the priority partner was the PSC if one looks at the final photo of what was approved and with whom.

Do you see any difference between this stage with a ‘president’ from ERC and the previous ones with one from JxCat?

We do not see excessive changes, but a certain continuity logic. Nor in the continuous battles between JxCat and ERC: they already happened in the previous Government and in this they are reproduced exactly the same. We were not clear about the political priorities of the previous Government; in this one it is also difficult to see them, beyond the rhetoric of the four revolutions. More money is allocated to some policies, but because there are more people who need these policies, as in the shock plan against poverty.

Is the CUP further from the Government right now than at the beginning of the legislature?

Yes. We understand that we have not moved, or that we continue to defend this need for a shift to the left, for policies that transform reality and the need to build an independence horizon, but we have seen that day by day has eaten away to the Government, which prioritizes management over transformation.

Will they demand that Aragonès maintain the commitment to submit to a question of trust?

It is a debate that for us is not a priority. The priority until December 23 is that the budgets approved by the Parliament go as far as possible, and we are working on that. But we understand that Aragonès is ‘president’ with a commitment to make a question of trust in the middle of the legislature, and that this must be maintained.

The Government begins to express doubts.

It is evident that the investiture agreement established different phases in building trust. If someone has breached the agreement, they are those who have not collected all the commitments of the investiture in a budget project, and those who have not been working together with the entire independence movement to build an independence horizon. If someone has not fulfilled the agreement, it is the Government. Therefore, we understand that this [la cuestión de confianza] It has to be done, but so far no one has spoken to us about it.

Has anything changed in the tolerance that the CUP promised to maintain on the dialogue table between governments?

We proposed in the investiture agreement that we would not use the dialogue table as opposition to the Government. That we would use it in Congress against the Government of the PSOE and Podemos. That did not mean that we were going to leave two years of social peace and we will talk. The independence movement needs to address what it will do when the dialogue table fails. What cannot be is that the dialogue table means social peace, stagnation of the conflict and exchange of cards to approve budgets, and that’s it.

Do you hope to negotiate with the Government amendments to the budgets before they are approved?

We have little hope, because basically our amendments continue to put in the debate what we already proposed before the amendment to the whole. It is necessary to allocate more money to public energy, because it is laughable or ashamed that half a million euros is allocated to it. With the budgets in process, the margin that the opposition groups have to make amendments is very small, because you have to move money in the same department, you cannot take from another. But we have tried to provide more resources also for universal basic income, or for public housing.

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To what extent does the CUP feel responsible for having broken the “52% block”?

We do not feel responsible for having broken 52%. 52% of us have to decide what it is for. If it serves only to stage a majority when some are interested but it does not serve to advance towards the exercise of the right of self-determination … For day-to-day management we have absolutely differentiated country models with JxCat, and sometimes with ERC. What is the use of having a pro-independence majority? Does the pro-independence majority break who does not approve budgets or break it who is dedicated to applying the employer’s program, which ruled against 1-O in 2017? If 52% is to advance towards independence, obviously we are there. I also think that a great story has been made around 52%, and that perhaps we should scratch the numbers a bit, although it is clear that there is a majority in the elections for the first time.