Spain's acting deputy prime minister, Carmen Calvo, emphasized on Saturday that the country's Supreme Court must abide by and comply with this week's European Court of Justice ruling on the parliamentary immunity of the jailed pro-independence leader Oriol Junqueras. "Court decisions must be obeyed and complied with, we haven't changed our position. Whatever the ruling, this ruling as well, which also binds our Supreme Court," she stated in the city of Córdoba. Calvo also commented that the Luxembourg-based EU Court of Justice "is also a court for Spaniards".
Calvo also commented on the state of the Spanish Socialist (PSOE) negotiations with pro-independence Catalan party ERC - which Junqueras leads - to secure the investiture of Pedro Sánchez as next prime minister of Spain. "Between people of different views, a solution for Catalonia must be found". At the same time, given that ERC does not renounce the possibility of a unilateral referendum on independence, she said that in the PSOE they know "perfectly well what the postulates of the independence movement are, and what the postulates of the Socialists are", with the latter being "very contrary" to such a referendum and, for that reason, "between people of different views" they must obtain "a solution for Catalonia".
For that reason, argued the deputy PM, "the important thing is to move forward as quickly as possible" in favour of "investing a new government", and that this must be reached "soon", in order to be able to open a "new phase", with the aim of "returning politics to politics and facing the situation in Catalonia" with "democratic principles".
Calvo spoke of how the acting Spanish government is "administering and supporting an inheritance from the Popular Party", whose leaders "for many years, literally abandoned the paths of politics so that Catalonia went in the direction it finally did, so that politics took place via [court] rulings."
That is why, "to get out of that phase, which we have inherited from the PP's disasters, which now feels it is beyond having any responsibility for Spain," the Socialists do not see "any other way out of the Catalonia situation than sitting down "to talk and reach agreement, within the frameworks that democratic principles and the rule of law allow", and this is something that "all parties" know.
Consequently, said Calvo, "the sooner we have a government, the faster we can make decisions on the day-to-day problems of this country, but also to do with the future of Catalonia." It was important to end the year with Pedro Sánchez invested as new PM, because this is something "that all citizens of this country, including Catalans," deserve. "As Spaniards, they deserve the Government to start working very soon, for our candidate to be invested very soon and for us to start making decisions very soon, because this situation, having had a second election, is urgent." The PSOE, she said, "is tackling that".