Along with many other countries in the European Union, the Spanish government has decided to send weapons to Ukraine to combat the Russian invasion, as prime minister Pedro Sánchez told Congress today. Shortly after this announcement, the Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, endorsed this decision by Spain because "Ukraine has the right to defend itself". Aragonès said this during a media appearance on a visit to Tortosa, where he said that strengthening Ukraine's military capabilities is important, but added that it was much more important to strengthen the strategy of economic sanctions against the Kremlin in order to change the balance of forces.
But just as the Spanish executive's decision to send arms to Ukraine has found opposition from within the government itself - with members of the Podemos party shaking their heads - so the Catalan president's support has not been endorsed by all his pro-independence allies. Aragonès finds himself in agreement with the line expressed by Junts and the PDeCAT today in the Spanish Congress, but opposing sentiments were voiced by both the CUP and from within Aragonès's own party, ERC, whose spokesperson in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, asserted that "as an anti-militarist I will never be in favour of sending more war to a war". The decision needs to pass through the source of national sovereignty, he said: "It's not a decision that can be taken lightly."
However, the ERC leader in Catalonia took a more pragmatic line. Aragonès stated that the government of the Generalitat has been committed to a "purely diplomatic" way out of the crisis from the beginning, but that now that there is a military aggression, he believes that Ukraine must be able to defend itself. However, he warned that the sending of military equipment should be carried out with a "traceability of how these arms will be managed to prevent future conflicts," as he believes this has happened elsewhere in the past.
Gabriel Rufián (ERC)
Criticisms from the CUP
The CUP did not go along with Aragonès's endorsement of the Spanish arms shipment to Ukraine, and in a statement, the far-left party criticized the president's views. They asserted that the responsibility of the United States and NATO in creating the conditions for the conflict must be taken into account, as they "want the militarization of Ukraine and the region in order to feed the arms lobby and make sense of NATO." At the same time, the anti-capitalist party clearly condemned Vladimir Putin's aggression in Ukraine, and backed the commitment to give support via cooperation and dialogue.
Do more than talk the talk
All this was taking place just a few hours before a major "Stop the War" had been called in Barcelona's Plaça Catalunya for this Wednesday evening, with 300 civil organizations and political parties, including Catalan governing partners ERC and Junts, taking part.
In fact, Junts spokesperson in the Congress Míriam Nogueras expressed this morning that as well as anti-war talk, it was necessary to walk the walk: "Proclaiming 'no to war' without doing anything else is like doing absolutely nothing", she said. Another Junts voice, the Catalan foreign affairs minister, Victòria Alsina, defended that it is an option that should be "considered" in this scenario. "Not always, when the conflict gets this raw, can you carry an oliver branch," said Alsina. In the same vein, the spokesman for PDeCAT, Ferran Bel, gave his full support to the measure announced this morning by the Spanish PM. He argued that measures taken by the European Union and NATO were "necessary".
Míriam Nogueras (Junts)