The Catalan vice president, Pere Aragonès (ERC), warns PSOE that "it has to be brave and overcome the fear of PP and the fact that conservatives will question decisions when we want to move forward".
Aragonès says that meeting of Bilateral Commission between Spanish State and Generalitat was "not very fruitful", because the state side "did not offer any specific information on sectoral issues or on fundamental problems".
Aragonès insists that Spanish government must be able to talk about situation of "political prisoners and exiles". In his opinion, if PSOE does not allow this issue to be dealt with, "it will be complicit by omission" in the "repressive policy of PP", and "if there is no progress in this, parliamentary support for Sánchez will lose its meaning".
Catalan minister admitted that "there is a possibility for discussion and debate". According to Aragonès, "PSOE knows that the legal case" against pro-independence leaders "is political, a legal construction has been articulated to justify a crime of rebellion that does not exist".
In his opinion, PSOE does not dare to move forward at the moment for his fear of PP. He says that the new president of PP, Pablo Casado, who calls for no concessions to Catalonia, aligns himself with the most populist and reactionary postulates of the European right.
"It makes no sense for the Socialists to ask us to agree with them on the General State Budget, when their lawyers line up with the far right to keep our political leaders in prison", says Aragonès.