Pau Juvillà is no longer a Member of the Catalan Parliament. This is an indisputable fact now that his loss of MP status has been published in the Catalan chamber's official gazette, although parliamentary sources explain that it is with retroactive effect, starting on 28th January, as stated on the chamber's website. This has not been fully clear until this Friday morning, after a whole week in which doubt dominated the agenda. Just yesterday, a committee opinion was approved in Parliament that agreed to preserve his seat, in a plenary session to which the CUP deputy himself was not called. All this has led to great deal of criticism of the speaker, Laura Borràs, but as well, reproaches of the CUP from the Junts party, who have commented that the far-left party wanted to send it to the "trash can of history". Amidst reproaches and demands, the figure at the centre of the controversy calls on the parties not to "dish out blame" and to remember who the real opponent is: the Spanish state.
Juvillà, who was convicted by the High Court of Catalonia (TSJC) for failing to remove yellow ribbons from his office in the Lleida city hall when he served there as a councillor, has published a Twitter thread assessing the current situation. "Our real opponent disqualifies a president for putting up a banner, prosecutes the Bureau of Parliament for allowing a debate and imprisons people for putting out ballot boxes. Our opponent denies us our right to freely decide our future. No more and no less," said Juvillà, referring to the many repressive cases against the independence movement such as the banning from presidential office of Quim Torra or the case against the Bureau for allowing a debate on self-determination. "From our logical dissent, we are obliged to create an anti-repression unity, based on a principle of reality, being clear about who our opponent is and working through specific actions. More bans and imprisonments are coming, and we need hope and not frustrations," he added. Juvillà, who has called for this unity in the face of cases which are due very soon, such as that of the CUP's Eulàlia Reguant for not responding to Vox's questions in the Supreme Court leaders' trial or ERC deputies Lluís Salvado and Josep Jové for their alleged roles in the 1st October referendum: "This is not about dishing out blame, it's about taking action."
Today or the 28th?
Juvillà's message comes a day in which the independence movement injured battered and bruised by a series of reproaches that have also become clearer today. The Bureau met at 9:30am, followed by further meetings which took up the rest of the morning. In these sessions, the situation of Juvillà was the main item discussed. Sources from the parliamentary groups in the chamber have explained that they have demanded an explanation from Borràs on everything that has happened, and especially on one matter: did Juvillà cease to be a deputy since today or since January 28th? This question is being asked by the parties because they believe that the speaker should have known this from the 28th, and should have communicated it to the other parties in order to rethink the strategy that was used this week, in relation to the stoppage of parliamentary activity and the holding of the plenary session to approve an MPs Statute Committee opinion that has now gone into the waster paper bin.
These same sources say that Borràs has said that in no case did she give instructions to withdraw Juvillà's MP status, and assures that it was yesterday when she learned that Juvillà was no longer a deputy, as well as confirming that it was the parliamentary civil servants who did not summon him to yesterday's session. Right at the beginning of the session, there were, in fact, very tense moments. While Vox MP Ignacio Garriga was addressing the house, members of the Bureau saw a list of the members of the chamber which was to be used for counting the votes - as the voting was carried out by a show of hands. At first, Pau Juvillà appeared on this list. An order was quickly given to reprint the papers and erase his name. The papers were then returned to the members of the Bureau, and Juvillà was no longer there.
Members of the Bureau at the time they saw Juvillà's name on the papers / Joan Mateu Parra
Beyond this anecdote, ERC sources say they are very disappointed and believe that the explanations made by Borràs "don't stand up" and are contradictory. They claim to have closed ranks with the speaker in this case, given that, in their view, Junts was very unfair in its criticism of the actions of the previous speaker, ERC's Roger Torrent, with the case of Quim Torra's removal from his seat, and for that reason, without saying anything in public, they feel they deserve an apology from their government partners. Other sources say that until noon yesterday, both the CUP and ERC made offers to Borràs to hold a press conference together and explain that they could no longer keep up the struggle with the Central Electoral Commission, but this did not end up happening.
For their part, the PSC and the Comuns signaled Borràs for not having communicated the situation of Juvillà. Socialist spokeswoman Alícia Romero said they were "told that Juvillà was a deputy, and yesterday Borràs said that he did not accept the delegation of votes due to a conflict of interest. If he was no longer a member of parliament, what was his conflict of interest?” For her part, Comuns leader Jéssica Albiach stating that it was the speaker's responsibility to inform the parties to clarify Juvillà's situation. "It was a farce, full of falsehoods and opacity," she said, calling for explanations and transparency in Parliament.
Junts takes aim at the CUP
Neither Junts members nor the speaker's office gave any explanations this morning. Some voices from Carles Puigdemont's party were critical of the CUP, accusing the far-left party of wanting to get rid of Borràs. In addition, they accused the CUP of pressuring a chamber civil servant to accept the delegation of Juvillà's vote, and of pushing Borràs to disobey without having been present at Bureau meetings in which decisions were taken, such as that on stopping Parliament, when Juvillà himself did not attend due to his health problem. In the end, the CUP made no comments on this situation either, although assuring that these accusation were "out of place".