Junts has denounced the "hypocrisy" of the left for allowing in Spain the continued "denigration" of women through the use of the full veil (burqa and niqab). The party criticizes that its organic law proposal to ban these garments in public spaces has been struck down and rejects that it was a mistake to include in the same text the transfer to Catalonia of the citizen security competence, an element that provoked the negative vote of PP and Vox.
The pro-independence party already had the opportunity to support the ban on full-face veils when Vox brought a similar proposal to Congress, but it rejected it because it came from Santiago Abascal's party and opted to register its own initiative. This proposal was also struck down last Tuesday in the Plenary Session, despite PP and Vox agreeing on most of the articles, by not accepting that these powers be transferred to the Generalitat. With the support of Alberto Núñez Feijóo's and Santiago Abascal's groups, it would have been enough for the Chamber to admit the law for processing.
In an interview on the RNE program "Parlamento," reported by Europa Press, the spokesperson for Junts in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, has underlined that her party "has always" claimed "some powers in all areas." She recalled that several of the norms approved while the agreement with the PSOE was in effect included the recovery of attributions that in the last two decades the Government had "stolen" from Catalonia.
"We have always used our votes to be able to recover powers that had been taken from us or to be able to incorporate new powers," he insisted, citing as an example the Organic Law on immigration agreed with the PSOE to transfer that power to the Generalitat. That transfer, he recalled, was frustrated by the opposition of Podemos, despite being "a party that has no representation in the Parliament of Catalonia."
In this regard, Nogueras has railed against the "hypocrisy" of "all" parties, and especially of "some who call themselves left-wing," for rejecting a proposal that, he argues, protects women and conforms "to all European standards." He further emphasized that just this week an Afghan woman declared forcefully in the Cooperation Commission that "the burqa is an imposition by men."
IMMIGRATION TRANSFER DEPENDS ON PODEMOS
Questioned about whether the regularization of immigrants approved last Tuesday by the Council of Ministers could facilitate the transfer of immigration powers to Catalonia, the Junts leader stated that "it only depends on whether Podemos continues to think that Catalonia does not deserve to have them".
In any case, he has lashed out at both the PSOE and Podemos for having negotiated and pushed through a royal decree "through the back door", without submitting it to the control of Congress, which, in his opinion, prevents Junts from doing "anything".
He added that, had that regularization been submitted to a vote of the Plenary, his group would have rejected it, especially taking into account that the most affected territory is Catalonia, where one in four people is an immigrant and where, as he warned, social services are "more strained than ever".