At 27 years old, Jorge Pueyo (Fonz, 1995) was elected deputy in the 2023 general elections representing Chunta Aragonesista within the Sumar list to the Congress of Deputies. A lawyer by training, Pueyo has presented a ‘late night’ on Aragón TV (‘A escampar la boira’) and is a declared activist of Aragonese, of which he has become one of the main disseminators.
He has posted on his X profile (Twitter) the formula he used to promise as a deputy in Congress. What is it like to sit in the seat without having turned thirty?
Like all young people, it happens to us that at first we feel that imposter syndrome. Impressive the first time you sit in the seat. But you adapt. The first time I spoke from the bench, I remember that I had a row of Vox deputies behind me spewing bile. I got up to speak and couldn’t hear myself. I said to myself, “This is going to be difficult.”
Has Congress surprised you for better or worse?
For the better, I have seen what many deputies work on or that there are possibilities of achieving things if you put your mind to it. For worse, issues that citizens can expect: often, the deputies in the chamber raise their tone because they want tiktoks or reels, and because if they talk about depending on what topics, with more mud, some media will buy it. Later, in the cafeteria, everyone greets each other. And you think: “Why don’t you move this image outside?”
Which PP or Vox deputy would you – or have you – gone out with and why?
(Laughs) From Vox, with a man whose name I will not say, with whom I debate a lot and who is always with a cigar at the door. And from the PP… with Luis María Beamonte. We have a different ideology, but whenever we have had to talk and negotiate something it has been very cordial. I like him very much.
The PSOE-Sumar Government is not going through its best moments. How do you experience this situation of almost permanent crisis?
Well, working hard and living each day as if it were your last… because it can be.
Yeah?
It is true that it depends on the week or month. In recent times I think that the legislature can last.
Does it cause frustration to see that they have a tied vote and that, for reasons other than that issue, a party like Junts knocks it down?
Frustration, anxiety and helplessness. And you see that the street breathes a pulse that is not seen in Congress. The other day the number of properties that the deputies have was published. Some with 19! How are these people going to cover the rental price? They don’t breathe reality.
As an Aragonese deputy, would you vote in favor of a financing agreement to transfer all taxes and guarantee a quota for Catalonia?
The reform of the financing law must be general for all the autonomous communities: if Aragón is left out, we will not be able to vote in favor. We need them to take into account our criteria, such as low density or territory. Let the cost of the services be calculated. Let’s talk about aging. Or article 108 of the Statute [el que regula el Acuerdo bilateral económico-financiero con el Estado].
If necessary, I feel such a delicate and fundamental aspect, wouldn’t it be a sufficient reason to break up with your partners?
We, together with Compromís and Més per Mallorca, are in a different situation. We do not have any position but we provide support like other groups. It is difficult, but sometimes the direction of the vote has not been unanimous. A Més per Mallorca deputy had to vote differently on a question of international law.
Yes, but under international law.
We are clear about what we are going to vote for; The consequences it may have, we hope, are minimal.
And how does wanting a general law for the autonomous communities combine with defending bilaterality with the State?
Reforming the law of the autonomous communities. Minister Montero said that they were going to promote bilateralism, and that is why we are afraid that Jorge Azcón will oppose it. If it happens with Galicia or Catalonia there will be first or second class communities and Aragón cannot miss that train: that is what Chunta is in Congress for.
“If the General State Budgets are not good for Aragon, we will vote against; If the financing is not good for Aragón, we will vote against; and if there is no compensation fund, we will vote against,” the CHA spokesperson said this Thursday in the Cortes of Aragon, while you nodded. From their words, it is almost inferred that they assume a vote against.
What I was assuming is that many times the weight is placed on a deputy, like me, when someone like Azcón has seven deputies in Madrid, the PSOE has four. We are thirteen Aragonese deputies and it seems that all the pressure is put on CHA. I am going to do everything in my power, and that is why we are negotiating, for example, that the infrastructure is the best possible. If financing is not good, we will not have basic social services covered. It is necessary to demand that financing and that is where we have stood.
Jorge Azcón is weak: a giant with feet of clay, at any moment he can break
Jorge Pueyo
— Deputy of Sumar-CHA in Congress
“How is it possible that the expression ‘left-wing nationalism’ is not considered among us a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron?” asks Javier Cercas. “The left is either internationalist or it is not,” says philosopher Donatella di Cesare. Have you thought about this question?
A lot. I believe that Aragonism is built, more than with flags, with us having the power to decide on the resources of our land. What do we want to do with energy, with the environment, where do we want to put the hospitals. Many times they are decisions imposed from Madrid: the closer we bring democracy to the territories, the more power the people will have. Do we want a hospital in Alcañiz? That decision has to be made by the Aragonese.
Privileging the Aragonese over Extremadurans or Galicians?
I do believe that I have more in common with a worker from Extremadura or Valencia, or a Norwegian or an Argentine, than with a young man from Aragon.
But the hospital, which any worker can use, wants it in Alcañiz.
Of course, because I want to bring democracy closer to the people; Otherwise, those workers in Aragon will not be able to have a hospital. Centralism has done a lot of damage. It has privileged three centers of industrialization and has caused the rest of us to be debtors of population to other territories. We must claim what is ours or no one will.
I am a sovereignist. The nationalist confronts from an identity, while the sovereigntist wants more democracy and more power for the people, he has his feet on the ground. I usually give the example of the company Tubacex, in Navarra. He had benefits but decided to fire 180 workers; There was a strike that received support from the unions, funds were raised to maintain employees’ salaries, a total push from society arose and, in the end, they managed to ensure that no one was fired: that is sovereignism for me.
When someone says – you yourself have stated it – “renewable yes, but not like this”, do they really mean “renewable yes, but not in my backyard”?
The problem is planning. Renewable yes, but what we cannot do is destroy natural landscapes, as the Maestrazgo cluster proposes. They want to destroy an entire cultural and natural heritage, zepa zones… We do not understand the ecological transition of the PSOE. For this reason, all Sumar ministers, along with CHA, have come out against the Maestrazgo cluster.
And apart from the Maestrazgo cluster, which one else do they reject?
A problem is also the high voltage lines, which transfer all the energy out of Aragon. And not only for that, but because they also pass five feet from the neighbors’ windows in Ribagorza, or in the middle of towns. Do you want high voltage lines? Put one on the Castellana, see what you think.
There is a problem, and that is that in our community we produce four times more than we consume: there is no need for more renewables here. In Madrid they refer to Aragon as ‘territory of sacrifice’. We must change that.
The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, said about Sijena’s assets that he did not share the “politicized management that the PP did of that matter”, that it was a “conflict of a patrimonial nature” that they wanted to transform into “political.” Do you share that position?
No.
Has it been transferred?
Yeah.
And what has he told you?
After the statement he told me that at all times he had said that the management of the assets belonged to Aragón. And that there had been a malicious information campaign by Junts and the PP. One by presenting the question in the Senate and another by trying to obtain political gain in Aragon. But don’t be fooled: the PP of Catalonia voted in 2016 in favor of the assets staying there.
How long will it be in Congress?
As I say, I live every day as if it were my last. I don’t see politics as a career from which I will always make a living: I am a lawyer and I want to return to practicing law. I don’t see myself spending much time in Congress, beyond what Aragón wants. I am Aragonese, I have my friends here… and being in Madrid is by no means a blessing.
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