Today the investiture debate of the PSC candidate, Salvador Illa, takes place, with the unknown of a possible arrest of the former president Carles Puigdemont, who after a speech at a reception disappeared and a search operation was launched.
Today the investiture debate of the PSC candidate, Salvador Illa, takes place, with the uncertainty of a possible arrest of the former president Carles Puigdemont, who after giving a speech at a reception disappeared and a search operation was launched.
The investiture debate of Salvador Illa began today as scheduled at 10:04 in Parliament without the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont having tried to enter or being arrested given the arrest warrant in force against him, with his seat empty despite his assurance that he would be present to vote on the spot. He did not take his seat and delegated the intervention of Junts to his parliamentary spokesman, Albert Batet.
cage operation
Official police sources confirmed that the Mossos D'Esquadra activated Operation Cage after Puigdemont spoke on stage and lost track between the stage from which he delivered his speech and the entrance to the autonomous room.
Mossos union spokesman Albert Palacio said on Radio 5 this morning that he had been located as a precaution, in view of a possible escape attempt. “I guess I'm trying to get away, and Operation Cage was activated for that reason,” Palacio said in the interview.
According to Catalunya Rdio, there was an agreement for the Mossos to authorize the speech and Puigdemont would surrender at the end, but according to police sources, the former president would have broken it.
La Vanguardia claims that he got into a car at the Arc de Triomphe and that the Mossos lost track of him on a ring road. Police sources informed El Peridico that a Mossos agent was arrested for his involvement in the escape and that he could be the owner of the car in which the “former president” fled after getting off stage.
Operation Pla Gbia (Operation Cage), ordered by the Higher Police Station, involves road checks to locate a person on the run. It was first activated in Barcelona and then extended to the whole of Catalonia.
An “exceptional” investiture
Thus, the president of the autonomous chamber, Josep Rull, opened the investiture ceremony in Parliament this morning by welcoming those present and, following the usual protocol, gave the order to read the minutes of the session and immediately gave the floor to Illa without referring to the former president.
Batet, in turn, denounced the fact that this investiture debate is taking place in a context of “exception”. Neither his party nor Puigdemont “will renounce the legacy of a referendum”, he said, in addition to criticizing the fact that the Mossos are looking for the former Catalan president “in the same way that the National Police and the Civil Guard, at the gates of October 1, were looking for the ballot boxes and ballot papers.
“Today, Puigdemont should be able to attend this plenary session,” he added, attacking Illa, who, as he predicted, will be “a Spanish president” at the head of a “branchist Generalitat”, because “his project is Spain” and he will be “subject to the interests of the PSOE and Moncloa”.
“From now on, the Spanish government will no longer need to apply 155, because its guardian will occupy the Palau de la Generalitat of Catalonia. With the investiture of Mr. Illa, Catalonia imposes 155. The paradox of the matter is that it does so with the support of one of the organizing parties of October 1,” he denounced.
Illa promises to respect the amnesty law
PSC leader Salvador Illa promised in his inauguration speech to guarantee that he would comply with the amnesty law in an “agile, rapid and uncompromising manner”, just an hour after Puigdemont appeared in the centre of Barcelona after seven years of evading justice.
Illa expressed his will and that of the PSC to “fully” restore the political rights of the parties and of all citizens of Catalonia.
He took advantage of the first minutes of his speech to ask for respect for the division of powers and, more specifically, of the judiciary after years of questioning the decisions of the courts by the political sphere, and expressly cited the independents of the ERC and Junts, in the Commons and also the Popular Party, with the aim of reaching agreements on the left and right of Parliament.
“I will speak to everyone despite the differences. I think we can all understand each other, except with those who profess hate speech, like Vox and Aliança Catalana.”
After signing the agreement with ERC in exchange for their support for his presidency, Illa defended the agreed budget deal as “a step forward, substantial and necessary for self-government” and assured that it does not endanger the principle of “solidarity, on the contrary, it recognizes it.
Illa also took advantage of his speech to make the first announcement on housing with the announcement of the construction of 50,000 homes and to control tourist rentals.
independence reception
Before the investiture, Puigdemont had participated in an institutional reception in the Parliament's representatives who had 2,500 people and those who were present at the Meetings, ERC, CUP, ANC, Mnium Cultural, CDR and Association of Municipalities for Independence ( TO ME).
The independence movement has tried to give an image of unity around Puigdemont, who could be arrested at any time, since it happens that although he is an elected deputy, he is also the subject of an arrest warrant that is still in force since the Supreme Court did not apply the amnesty law to him.
“I came to remind you that we are still here,” Puigdemont said in a brief speech in which he asked his followers “not to give up on the self-determination of Catalonia,” a right that belongs to the people. After his remarks, Puigdemont headed to the chamber and has been nowhere to be found since.
Three minutes before 9am, Puigdemont appeared walking down Trafalgar Street, flanked by the Speaker of Parliament, Josep Rull, and headed towards the stage amid cheers and shouts of “Independence”. After his words, he left the camera spotlight and was not seen again..
“I came to remind you that we are still here.”
“Today I came here to remind you that we are still here, because we do not have the right to resign,” Puigdemont said from the podium of the stage set up in front of Barcelona's Arc de Triomf.
“Hello, welcome compatriots. You have been persecuting us for seven years because you want to hear the voice of the Catalan people,” were his first words. “They have unleashed a very harsh repression that has led us to prison, to exile, that has affected thousands and thousands of people because they are pro-independence” and “they have transformed being Catalan into something suspect.” In these seven years, he stressed, “the repression has wreaked a lot of havoc” and will continue to do so “as long as the politicization of justice is not stopped, as long as four judges govern more than a Parliament, as long as the PP is allowed to govern.” control the Second Chamber of the Court. “Supreme Court through the back door” and as long as “Vox is allowed to act as a private prosecutor to persecute political dissidents.”
“Despite the fact that they wanted to do us a lot of harm” and “we have seen their repressive face, today I have come here to remind them that we are still here because we do not have the right to give up”, because “the right to self-determination belongs to the people” and “no politician has the right to give up the right of the Catalan people to freely decide their future”.
Puigdemont later said that “difficult” days would come when “we will have to support each other like never before” and “we must know how to prepare new opportunities” because “we will have them and we will win them.” “I don't know when we will see each other again, but whatever happens, when we see each other again, I hope we can shout together again, very loudly, what I already said in my speech. Long live free Catalonia,” he concluded.