Josep Pagès, a lawmaker from the Jantz party, believes the government is “in a state of denial” because it has not accepted the suspension announced by pro-independence groups in parliament. For this reason, he proposed to the executive branch to dissolve Cortés and hold general elections. Speaking to the House of Commons Judiciary Committee, attended by Minister Félix Bolaños, Pagés reiterated that “a rift has emerged” and denied that Juntz and the government were in the same situation as a year ago, stressing that there was no longer a parliamentary majority.
For pro-independence MPs, that majority no longer exists and only one government remains, he warned, but it lacks the capacity for “political promotion through the approval of laws”. That’s because the votes of the seven Jantz members are essential for the executive branch to have a majority to approve any initiative. “Faced with a traumatic event like breaking up with Janz, you are fully in what is called the denial stage. After the shock, denial is the first stage of grief and is characterized by disbelief and denial of reality in the face of loss. People act as if the loss never happened,” he said.
In that sense, as announced a few days ago by Yunz’s spokesperson Miriam Nogueras, he claimed that his group will submit amendments to the entire LECRIM and the remaining proposals from the government, which will be submitted to parliament this Friday. “Mr. Bolaños, there is no parliamentary majority. We are not in the situation we were in before. Therefore, it is not the responsibility of the government to impose a political framework,” Juntz summed up.
For Pagés, he noted, the equivalent of government “in any case” is “to get to the source of democratic legitimacy and give that word back to parliament, or ultimately to the people.” Along the same lines, he pointed out that “Article 115” of the constitution provides for “the dissolution of the Cortes and the holding of elections as a normal mechanism for restoring the legitimacy of the parliamentary system.” A deputy from Carles Puigdemont’s party believes that “nothing is happening” because, he points out, in a country with a strengthened democracy, the dissolution of parliament is not a symptom of “weakness” but “respect for the principle of popular sovereignty.”