Catalan President Carles Puigdemont said he won’t call for early elections since he hasn’t received guarantees from the Spanish government that it would stop the trigering of Article 155, speaking at a press conference in Barcelona on Thursday.
SOT, Carles Puigdemont, Catalan President (Catalan): “They know that I have been prepared to call these elections as long as there are guarantees of absolute normality. There are none of these guarantees that today justify parliamentary elections.”
SOT, Carles Puigdemont, Catalan President (Catalan): “It was my duty to try, honestly and legally, basically, to avoid the impact on our institutions of the application of article 155 as approved by the Council of Ministers and as it will probably be approved by the Senate.”
SOT, Carles Puigdemont, Catalan President (Catalan): “Neither is there any intention to stop the repression and to seek conditions of an absence of violence in which it would be possible to hold elections. I have tried to obtain these guarantees. I believe I have acted in accordance with my responsibility and with the feeling of people of different options that have been posed. But, once again, a responsible response on the part of the People’s Party has not yet been achieved.”
SOT, Carles Puigdemont, Catalan President (Catalan): “No one will be able to reproach the will of dialogue and politics on the Catalan side. No one can say that I have not been willing to make sacrifices to ensure all possibilities for dialogue will be put.”
SOT, Carles Puigdemont, Catalan President (Catalan): “But once again we prove, with a lot of disappointment, that responsibility is only demanded and pressured from us, and to others, their absolute irresponsibility is allowed.”
SOT, Carles Puigdemont, Catalan President (Catalan): “Of course, without having signed a decree on the dissolution of the elections, it is up to Parliament to proceed with what the parliamentary majority determines in relation to the consequences of the application against Catalonia of article 155.”
SOT, Carles Puigdemont, Catalan President (Catalan): “My responsibility as president is to run out of every option I have. Catalan society has always, as its government, invoked peace and civism, practiced peace and civism.”