The MP for the pro-independence CUP party, Eulàlia Reguant, has told ACN that if Catalan president Pere Aragonès does not agree to face a confidence vote at the midpoint of the Catalan legislature as agreed, an "option" would be the calling of early elections to assess whether he has the necessary support.
The far-left CUP and centre-left ERC agreed, in their spring 2021 agreement which paved the way to the formation of Pere Aragonès's pro-independence government in coalition with Junts, that the president would submit himself to a confidence vote after two years of the four year term. Based on this understanding, the commitment to submit to the confidence vote was to serve not only to invest the new president, but also to secure CUP support for Catalan government budgets. Aragonès considers, then, that he is no longer obliged to face such a vote because the CUP is no longer acting as a guarantor of stability, after its failure to support last year's budget.
Reguant denies this interpretation on the stability issue but says that "it doesn't matter" if it was agreed with the CUP or not: "It is positive that he [submits to a vote], and we will continue to defend that the question of confidence is necessary". They see it as a "tool for democracy and transparency". In the event that there is no question of confidence, an "option" would be for Aragonès to call early elections, she reiterated. However, at the moment the anti-capitalist party has not considered this and they insist on complying what they see as the initial pact with ERC.
The parliamentary deputy believes that the Catalan government has "always, from the very beginning" preferred the alternative left En Comú Podem over the CUP in the negotiation of budget. In fact, the executive approved last year's budget with the Comuns deputies. "ERC needs to be sincere and honest and stop treating people as minors. Let them explain who their partners are and what their alliances are," Reguant demanded.
The leader of the Catalan Socialists (PSC), Salvador Illa, made a public offer to Aragonès to open negotiations on his party's support for the next budget. But Aragonès, in an interview with the ACN, closed the door to the Socialists, and stated his preference for the CUP and Comuns. Reguant believes, in this regard, that the president of the Generalitat "does not need" to negotiate the numbers with Illa because "on a day-to-day basis, with the policies he promotes, they are already hand in hand". She adds that they are unlikely to convert this into a formal agreement because "it is based on aesthetics, and there are municipal elections next year."
Asked if the relationship between the Catalan government and the CUP can be put back on track, the deputy says that this depends on the executive, but she does not see it as possible if it continues to carry out the policies it has followed so far. The CUP wants policies "that go to the root of the issues", in terms of housing and the climate emergency. "We would have liked to have seen the Government defend the Universal Basic Income the way it has defended the bid for the Winter Olympics", she noted.