The first secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, has called on Junts and ERC to “be up to the task at a transcendent moment”, which entails “a bit of political skill and a high dose of discretion”, in addition to avoiding going through “a dead end that leads nowhere”, while the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont has stated that he does not want to “turn the page” on the independence referendum and has recalled that tomorrow, October 1, marks six years of the unilateral consultation called within the framework of the process.

In the intervention with which he opened the National Council of the PSC this Saturday, Illa called on “all parties, especially the Catalans”, to “think more about the country and pay attention to what the citizens say”.

In clear reference to the pro-independence formations of Junts and ERC, key to the investiture of the socialist leader, Pedro Sánchez, he indicated: “Demonstrate a bit of political skill, a know-how, a due discretion to ensure that what the citizens said was ratify Congress”. And, in his opinion, the voters opted on July 23 for “a progressive government” and for “moving forward”: “Listen to what the citizens said,” he noted..

Some statements that come after yesterday, Friday, Junts and ERC redoubled their pressure on Sánchez by approving in the Parliament of Catalonia a resolution to condition his investiture to setting the conditions for holding a referendum, a position that the PSC has already categorically ruled out.

However, Illa considers that it is time for Congress to “ratify what the citizens said on July 23”, after the failed investiture of the popular candidate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, which took place this week.. If, on the other hand, the negotiations for Sánchez to remain in Moncloa fail, “the citizens will take note”, because “not listening to the citizens is never a good political recipe”, he said before recalling the poor results of the Catalan independence movement in the last general elections.

Illa has shown the PSC's willingness to see “what further steps can be taken” to channel the Catalan political conflict. “We are willing to do it, to explore it. But to do it coherently, not in fits and starts, and to do it within the framework of the Constitution. With great generosity, but not with naivety,” he added. And “no one can deny that things are better today” in Catalonia, he said the day before the six-year anniversary of the unilateral independence referendum..

In relation to the Catalan executive, now made up solely of ERC, he has regretted that it opted for the “bad path”, which is to “think more about the party than the country” and “externalize responsibilities”, among other reproaches.. This, he recalled, despite having had to “swallow” the “cordon sanitaire” against the socialists and has approved the Catalan budgets thanks to the favorable vote of the PSC. Thus, Illa has once again offered to “change things when the time is right”, since he has said that he is in no “rush” to become president of the Generalitat..

For his part, and in a message released this Saturday to the networks, coinciding with the negotiations for the investiture of the acting president of the Government and socialist leader, Pedro Sánchez, Puigdemont recalls that “for six years we have been firmly defending the independence referendum “. “There are those who would like us to forget, to let it be and turn the page. This is not our case nor that of many of you,” points out the leader of Junts..

The former president alludes to the events called tomorrow in Barcelona to remember that consultation on October 1, in which, he assures, it was decided “that that was our destiny, the majority will of the people of Catalonia”. “And everything we do must serve this purpose,” he concludes..