In recent days, Juan Ignacio Zoido, interior minister under the government of Mariano Rajoy and current MEP, has justified Spain's use of Pegasus software to spy on pro-independence politicians, and in the context of the EU inquiry committee visit to Madrid, put the focus on exiled president Carles Pugidemont. Also taking part in a key meeting where this occurred on Tuesday was Pere Aragonès, and the Catalan president heard the People's Party (PP) politician assert that "judicial and police investigations" investigated Puigdemont's meetings with Vladimir Putin's emissaries and an alleged offer of soldiers who could help Catalonia. "Don't you think that these kinds of contacts amply justify the interest of the intelligence services, not only from Spain, but from any NATO member state?" Zoido asked the president. Faced with these words from the former Spanish minister, this morning the general secretary of Together for Catalonia (Junts), Jordi Turull, was strongly critical of Aragonès for not taking issue with his statements during the meeting: "Hearing the ex-minister Zoido spewing lies to attack president Puigdemont with the narrative about Russia, it is regretful that on the part of Aragonès there was not just a defence but an attack on the lies he was telling. That [Aragonès] acted as if he could do nothing in the face of the lies from the person who was responsible for the repression of the 1st October". Faced with the president's silence at this moment of the EU committee encounter, Turull insisted in an interview with Catalunya Ràdio, that he believes that independence supporters must "defend themselves collectively" against fake news such as that spread by Zoido.
Turull also reiterated that the timetabling the motion of no confidence moved by Ramón Tamames - which he described as a "comedy staged by Vox" - on the same day as the visit of the European Parliament's committee of inquiry on the use of Pegasus in Spain is not a coincidence but an element of distraction consciously employed by the speaker of Congress, Mertixell Batet: "They did it on purpose", Turull asserted, in the same line as argued by the Junts spokesperson in Congress, Míriam Nogueras. "This is the concept that the state has, first the sacrosanct unity of Spain and then, if there is time, to talk about fundamental rights and freedoms. This happens all the time", reflected Turull, who regretted that the media attention was on the motion in Congress, "which everyone used as a television studio for an electoral campaign", instead of the Pegasus committee, which is investigating one of the most serious events of Spain's democracy, as he himself defined it. However, he recognized that the absence of representatives of the Spanish government had a positive side, and that is that the members of the committee get to know how the Spanish state operates.
Turull regrets ERC's lack of generosity
Also relating to the committee, Turull regretted that only ERC representatives were present in the meeting that gave a voice to the victims of the espionage, when the list of those affected goes far beyond this party and also affects civil society. As he pointed out, the names of the representatives were decided at the European Parliament in a space in which Junts does not have a presence, and he acknowledged that the party was sorry that there was no "point of generosity" when the question of giving space to other parties could have been considered. However, he asserts that he does not believe that partisan use was made of the event, but that an opportunity was wasted "to show the dimension of the barbarity perpetrated by the state".
Aside from the no-confidence motion and the Pegasus commission, the general secretary of Junts also reviewed current issues related to his party. On the one hand, he celebrated that Xavier Trias has called his candidacy "Trias for Barcelona", renouncing the Junts party name, since he believes that the ex-mayor's positions exceed the party's own line and go further. In addition, he asserted that Trias has his hands free to reach agreement with whoever he considers best after the elections. Regarding the situation of the speakership of Parliament, he said that the party does not consider any other scenario than the acquittal of Laura Borràs after the trial in the Institute of Catalan Letters case, and that, therefore, she will be automatically restored to her position as speaker of the Catalan chamber.