The Minister of Culture and number 2 of Frente Amplio for Barcelona to the Congress, Ernest Urtasun, has stepped forward in response to the criticisms of the president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, who had reproached the Comuns for their alleged neglect and had argued that voting for them is equivalent to wasting the vote. In response to these words, Urtasun has replied: "In this campaign I won’t mistake my opponent."
In his address, he has avoided attacking Esquerra, but has firmly defended the usefulness of the vote for his political space. "I won’t attack Esquerra Republicana, but if you ask me what good it does to vote for Comuns-Frente Amplio, ask the hundreds of thousands of people to whom we have changed their lives in this country, Comuns-Frente Amplio," he has stated, addressing Junqueras expressly during an event held this Saturday in Vic (Barcelona).
The rally took place at the Biblioteca Pilarín Bayés and featured the presence of number 7 on the list for Barcelona, Viviane Ogou, as well as the councilor of the Comuns in the locality, Arnau Martí, who rallied around Urtasun in his defense of the Comuns-Frente Amplio project.
MINIMUM WAGE
Among the arguments put forward by Urtasun to justify the relevance of the vote for his formation, he highlighted the increase in the interprofessional minimum wage, which, as he recalled, has been raised by 75% and benefits "more than 280,000 people". In his view, this measure exemplifies the direct impact of the policies promoted by his space on citizens’ lives.
He added that "today in Catalonia there are more than half a million people who have more work thanks to the Comuns and the Frente Amplio," thereby underscoring job creation and consolidation as one of the main achievements of his political action.
He also highlighted the labor reform promoted by the Minister of Labour, Yolanda Díaz, which, as he indicated, has allowed that in Catalonia there are "more than 680,000 people who have a permanent contract," despite the republicans’ vote against that reform, he emphasized.