Pau Juvillà has made his first public statements now that he is no longer a deputy of the Catalan Parliament, putting the emphasis on the need for the pro-independence parties to stop their infighting, as well as the need to confront the repression of the Spanish state, even if on this occasion it has been unsuccessful. After being convicted of disobedience and then targeted by Spain's Central Electorial Commission despite his appeal being still unheard, the CUP deputy's seat was withdrawn on February 4th, taking retroactive effect from the 28th, as explained yesterday by the Parliament's secretary in a letter, in explanations that were very late in being made public, leading to heavy criticism among the pro-independence parties in the wake of a divisive week. Just yesterday, the speaker of parliament, Laura Borràs, said that the blame for the unfortunate outcome of the affair belongs to pro-independence parties ERC and the CUP, due to their refusal to accept a proposal that the speaker says she presented to them, but which ERC asserts was ever spelt out. The far-left CUP party was silent yesterday and today Juvillà asked all parties to stop their mutual reproaches, because they were not helping Catalonia: "If someone has to shoulder the blame, I will. No problem."
In an interview with Catalunya Ràdio, Juvillà emphasized that while the pro-independence parties are divided, they made the effort to meet and talk over the issue. In this regard, he claimed that the three parties had held weekly and even daily meetings, and that reaching agreement was not easy, but that the path up till now has been positive, because very soon it will be necessary to address new cases of repression such as those of his CUP parliamentary colleague Eulàlia Reguant and the ERC politicians Lluís Salvadó and Josep Jové. For Juvillà, it is key to avoid giving an image of anger, but rather, one of hope, and to emphasize that unity in the face of repression is the "least common denominator".
The former MP believes that the path taken so far has gone well to a certain extent, and that now it must be possible to do better: "The hope is that we are all together in this fight against repression." Asked specifically about the proposal that Borràs says she proposed to the other political groups, he said that they do not know which proposal she was referring to, and explained that in the meetings all groups made proposals and that in no case were they opposed by the CUP: "I assure you that the CUP always gave its support to all the proposals", thus denying Borràs's statements in which she asserted that the other two parties had left her alone in the strategy: "We don't want to leave the speaker exposed at all," he said, after Junts asserted that the CUP wanted to throw Borràs into the "rubbish bin of history". And as well as words of support for Borràs, he also had words for other members of the Bureau, such as ERC's Alba Vergés and Rubén Wagensberg, and Aurora Madaula of Junts.
The incognito that is still hanging in the air is over when Juvillà stopped being a deputy. Although the secretary general of Parliament said yesterday that she gave the order for the withdrawal of the seat on Thursday evening with retroactive effects, Juvillà explained that he sensed that he had lost his status at the moment of being unable to vote in the last plenary session, which Borràs had justified as being due to a "conflict of interest", as the only item on the agenda was to approve the committee opinion asserting that Juvillà still held his seat.
The former MP stated that he has had no communication from Parliament to declare that he is no longer a member of the house, and that the only information he has had is a message on his mobile from Social Security saying that he has lost his labour status. However, while Juvillà was making these statements at the radio studio, a communication arrived from Parliament, which was posted on Twitter by his colleague Reguant. Asked what will happen now with his seat - whether he will be replaced by the next on the CUP candidature list or not - he replied that the CUP claimed that until the sentence is final they will not move, which means that for the moment no one will replace Juvillà.
Avui mentre el @pjuvilla era entrevistat al @maticatradio al grup parlamentari hem rebut la notificació del @parlamentcat que ja no el considera diputat en data 4 de febrer.
— Eulàlia Reguant Cura (@aramateix) February 8, 2022
El @parlamentcat perd un gran diputat, a la @cupnacional continuem tenint un militant d pedra picada. pic.twitter.com/TiWeXkTlbi
Juvillà was also clear on the fact that the ultimate cause of all the controversy in the Catalan Parliament last week was the repression of the Spanish state, which "tries to arrive judicially where it cannot reach politically", and he regretted that the current context is one in which the Spanish state is constantly attacking the Catalan independence movement. Despite this, he assured that things have been done in Parliament that had not been done so far to attempt to combat this interference: "This struggle is collective, plural and public," he concluded, adding that he would once again put yellow ribbons in his office in the Paeria de Lleida, because that was a collective decision to disobey an instruction to make a cause visible. A decision that led him, individually, to receive a six month ban on holding public office.