Senior Catalan government minister Elsa Artadi has sent the Spanish government the detailed list of subjects that president Quim Torra is to raise in his July 9th meeting with Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez focusing on the relationship between Catalonia and Spain. And, disavowing a claim made by Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias, spokesperson Artadi has that Torra does not close the door on taking unilateral action in the future.
It had earlier been proposed by Spain's minister of territorial administration, Meritxell Batet, that the Catalan government should present a proposal of subjects to discuss at the July meeting - a proposal which, as Artadi explained, will present the "needs" of the Catalan executive in relation to the "main and fundamental issue" and has to include the topics of "political prisoners, exile, repression, the right to self-determination, along with other subjects related to the regression experienced in democracy and civil rights, such as the continuation of aspects of the Franco regime in the political and civil spaces of the Spanish state".
"All of this must revolve around what we understand is the main subject of the meeting. If we forget this, it is not the most profitable way to start establishing this relationship", said Artadi, adding that president Torra will not take to the meeting the grievances that were already delivered by former Catalan presidents Artur Mas and Carles Puigdemont in their last meetings with the Spanish government. "The points raised by Mas and Puigdemont are non-compliances of the Spanish government, which have to be resolved", the minister argued, explaining the response to be made to these points now will be limited to giving a reminder about them.
Artadi repudiated the words of Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias, who had claimed that the Catalan president had renounced a unilateral approach, admitting she had been surprised by the Podemos leader's affirmation, and assuring that Torra did not make such a statement during the meeting held by the two men on Monday. The Catalan spokesperson insisted that Torra's government was committed to "dialogue and negotiation without excluding any path".
In relation to the words of president Torra, who on Monday invited Catalans to carry out a exercise of self-criticism about the errors of the past with the aim of formulating "a new 1st October" which would enable independence to be made effective, Artadi has accepted that the 1st October referendum day last year was a "window of opportunity" in which "decisions were taken which were considered to be the correct ones", and that, in the future, new decisions could be considered.