On one side, the right in block with a granitic discourse to point out that the immigrant population puts it at risk in everything from public resources to citizen security. And in front, a left divided between the commitment to delve into the decentralization of the territorial model to assume the request of Juns and the denunciation of the “racist policies.” The debate that took place this Tuesday in Congress about the transfer of immigration management to Catalonia, agreed by the PSOE with the Puigdemont party, not only evidenced the cracks of the parliamentary majority that supports the government, with together chosen towards PP and Vox postulates and with Podemos very critical of the Executive, but served to air the grudges between the progressive formations between the progressive formations.
From the merely legislative, the text agreed between Junts and the PSOE to delegate the competences of immigration management to Catalonia, now in the hands of the State, derailed at the first exchange. Because the PP and Vox rejected him under the argument that he breaks Spain and because we can also oppose, although for very different reasons. “Today we do not discuss the state model or on competencies. Today we position ourselves in front of an initiative that deals with immigration as a social danger,” said deputy Javier Sánchez Serna.
This delegation of competencies, in reality, was agreed almost two years ago between the PSOE and together in the heat of an in extremis negotiation on a topic that had nothing to do: an economic decree that included a wide package of anti -crisis measures, from the discount to public transport to the reduction of basic food VAT. To be able to move it forward, the government then promised to give in to the party of Carles Puigdemont in one of the issues of which it makes a flag in its electoral competence with the Xenophobic Aliança Catalan: the management of immigration.
The text agreed between Catalan socialists and independentistas included that, from now on, it would be the Catalan Generalitat who would manage the returns of migrants, residence permits or foreigners' internment centers. And that they were the Mossos, whose number of agents would increase in 1,800, who would assume the security of ports, airports and “critical areas” in cooperation with the rest of the State's security forces and bodies.
During her defense of the text in the parliamentary debate on Tuesday, Junts spokeswoman again made it clear what moves her political formation to demand that it be Catalonia who assumes the command of immigration policies. Míriam Nogueras spoke of a situation of “collapse” and related the migrant population with “saturated” public sevices.
“40%of immigrants in Catalonia do not work and many of them have to receive social aid to be able to live. In recent years we have assumed more than two million people and the country and their services have been saturated. In the early 90s the foreign population represented 2%. Today almost 19%, well above the European average that is 9.6%,” he concluded.
Juns spokeswoman also blamed immigration to endanger Catalan identity. And he did it with a phrase of surprising hardness. “The survival of our identity is not guaranteed, especially because of the enormous impact that this phenomenon has on the Catalan language, a factor of absolutely extraordinary social integration and integration. 20 years ago, 46% of the citizens of Catalonia had the Catalan language as a regular language, today only 32.6%,” he said.
The speech of Nogueras, hardly distinguishable in immigration matters to the positions of the PP or Vox, was the perfect hanger for Podemos in the justification of its vote against, already announced since last week and decisive for the text to derail. “The extreme rights make their way in Spain and in Catalonia and impose their agenda. And they also do so with a very simple speech and that is reaching many people: all the problems of our time, from the inequality of classes to the climate crisis, have their origin in immigration. The immigrant is guilty,” said the deputy of Ione Belalar.
“Does anyone really think that all this is going on competencies? Here what has been agreed to socialist and Junts party is a law to decide which administration exercises racism and pressure on the immigrant population to link immigration and crime again. And Podemos cannot be there because what we claim are legal changes to guarantee the human rights of all and all,” said Sánchez Serna.
The independence left reproaches Podemos his vote
What this political discussion highlighted is the division that generates this matter between the state left and the independence progressive forces, who struggled to ask Podemos to reconsider their vote. The spokesman for Esquerra Republicana, Gabriel Rufián, was especially hard. “I respect greatly, much. Its people are my people (…), but today I don't understand them,” he told the four deputies of the party, who made clear last week that they would not support a law that they consider racist.
“We are not defending a law and competencies of Junts but some powers and laws for Catalonia,” said Rufián, which came to consider “absurd” the explanations of Podemos to reject this vote. “The path they undertake today is really worrying,” he insisted.
A message collected by the deputy of EH Bildu, Jon Iñarritu, concerned with the stability of the legislature in the face of the clash between Podemos and Junts, which has already marked some important votes in these two years. “All those parties that support the investiture, we feel or not part of that majority, or we are all co -responsible in each standard or here nothing is approved,” he said with the certainty that the vote of Podemos would lie the law. “Are we playing that?” “Only these gentlemen win, who are looking forward to everything,” he said in reference to PP and Vox.
Iñarritu also launched direct criticisms of Podemos, whom he asked to reflect on the vote as a leftist party that supports plurinationality. “Accusing this norm of possible racism means that we might think that no Catalan or Catalan can manage the competences well,” he said.
Add be tangled in a new internal debate
Add, meanwhile, reproduced on Tuesday that same debate within its own group. He did it first with Alberto Ibáñez, the deputy of Compromís who remains in the coalition, which announced in the first hour that he would not support the text, also under the argument that the framework of the debate on which this proposition is substantiated is that of the Xenophobic competition of Juns and Aliança Catalan.
But he also added to this United Left debate, which throughout the day internally discussed the position on a law that, yes, they knew he was already lost. The formation had asked Junts guarantees that their immigration positions are consistent with human rights, but Nogueras discourse did not contribute to it.
In the afternoon, IU said that it would prolong until the vote “the conversations with Junts” to have guarantees that the final content of the proposition of the law “could have” important modifications in the event that it is in a position to be taken into consideration. “. precisely by the Catalan independence.
Finally, the six IU parliamentarians have voted in favor, in a decision worked until the last minute, but in the adding bench the deputy of Chunta Aragonesista, Jorge Pueyo, who has voted against, although neither his position nor that of Ibáñez have moved the final result, which with Podemos was opting.
To defend his vote against, the PP elected the deputy for Barcelona Ignacio Martín Blanco, star signing from Citizens that Feijóo incorporated his lists in the last general elections. And the popular decided to focus on the defense of a centralized territorial model and not to the substantive issue of immigration management. “It is harmful to the whole of the Spaniards,” he said before venturing that, if the text is approved, he will be lying by the Constitutional Court. “The determination of who is a citizen, how are the borders or who can come to our country cannot be susceptible to delegation of competences. The constitutional has a consolidated jurisprudence.”
From the PSOE, fearful of the political consequences that the fall of one of their most symbolic demands may have in Junts, they preferred to focus on the PP. “In our agreement, the deployment of the Mossos is not delegated, that was done by the PP, or 30% of the IRPF, that was already done by the PP, José María Aznar was done to get the investiture votes of Pujol. His hypocrisy has no limits,” reproached the socialist deputy, José Zaragoza.
The deputy of Vox, Pepa Millán, did come to prove Junts in the background. “Catalans have seen the increase in insecurity, the creation of parallel societies, the collapse of public services and a progressive Islamization incompatible with true progress.” But he flatly rejected that management is a delegable issue in the Autonomous Communities. “It is a lie that the competencies in the field of foreigners are delegable. There are no 17 borders, there is only one border. We are talking about constituent elements of a State. That in no case can be of particular interest of any region. So not, neither Catalonia nor any region can have competencies in immigration,” he concluded.
The vote is over with the 177 votes against the right, Podemos and the two deputies of adding and an insufficient majority of 173 seats that overshadowed in the late afternoon the faces of the Parliamentarians of Junts.