Catalonia’s Socialist president: tackling inequality can blunt separatist and far-right voices | Catalonia

Catalonia’s Socialist president said his party’s focus on tackling inequality could win over voters attracted by pro-independence and far-right voices, as he seeks to convince Catalans of the benefits of co-existing with the central government in Madrid after years of turmoil.

Salvador Illa, a close ally of Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez, has been in office since August 2024 and leads the first Catalan parliament without a pro-independence majority in 44 years.

The socialists are in a contradictory situation: Sánchez’s minority coalition government depends on the votes of the pro-independence Junts party led by Carles Puigdemont, the architect of the failed effort to secede from Spain in 2017, while Illa’s regional government does not.

Separatist critics of the Catalan president have derided him as an anesthetist whose proximity to Madrid has plunged Catalonia into a political coma.

“What we’re trying to do is create an atmosphere of calm and coexistence,” the 59-year-old said in an interview with the Guardian. “What most people in Catalonia want is not just to create prosperity, because that is not enough. They want the wealth to be shared. People will not understand whether this prosperity belongs to the elite or to the big cities.”

Alongside Illa’s economic agenda is a policy aimed at appeasing Junts and Puigdemont, who remains in self-imposed exile in Brussels following a unilateral independence referendum declared illegal by Spain’s constitutional court.

Puigdemont is negotiating the return, using Sánchez’s ability to overthrow the minority government in Madrid as leverage for political amnesty, the transfer of immigration policy to Catalonia and commitments to maintain Catalan as the official European language.

Although Sánchez and Illa said they would oppose amnesties ahead of the 2023 national elections, the Spanish parliament passed such a law in May last year pardoning those who participated in the referendum. Accusations of misuse of public funds against Puigdemont and two others, which are not covered by the amnesty law, are also being examined by the constitutional court.

Illa was outspoken about the amnesty change, saying: “Conditions have changed after the elections and we need to take that into account.

“This is trying to find a way out. This is politics, a pragmatic approach to reality. What we are trying to do is to create an atmosphere of calm and coexistence.”

“Those who said the Socialists would strengthen separatist politicians only by making concessions to them proved wrong,” Illa continued. “It weakened the independence parties,” he said. “The problem was not that there were people in favor of an independent Catalonia, the problem was respecting the rule of law.”

He said he wanted to see Puigdemont return to Catalonia and become active in politics again, and called on the constitutional court to try to resolve the remaining issues as soon as justice allows. He even went to Brussels to meet Puigdemont to prove that dialogue was, in his words, “the driving force of democracy.”

Illa said the nationalist rise in Catalonia fueled support for the 2017 referendum: and Brexit in the UK – as populist responses to the 2008 financial crisis. “This was a time when people were offered quick, easy, magical solutions to complex problems,” he said.

He argued that if Catalan nationalism is now weakening, the responsibility for how Spanish democracy responds to it, the success of Europe’s common approach to Covid and the war in Ukraine “underline the need to be part of a public sphere of 350 million people.”

Illa added: “It has created a change in the Catalan mentality and it’s nice to be part of something bigger.”

The political threat that Illa and Junts currently face comes, in some respects, from the far-right, nativist party Aliança Catalana, led by Sílvia Orriols, which has thrived on its opposition to immigration and Islam. “Today we must focus on defending the values ​​of democracy against the far-right totalitarian project,” he said.

Illa had identified the need to build and release more housing as the most effective way to combat rent increases, which lie at the root of much of Spain’s inequality.

It plans to build 50,000 homes for social rent and release land that could buy a further 210,000 properties. Meanwhile national the government introduced A law that allows authorities to cap “disproportionate” rental prices in some areasStarting from 2028, AirBnB will be banned in some cities.

Illa added that the best response is for “social democratic parties to stick to their policies, be bold and not change our agenda or priorities.” [to those] from the far right”.