On Wednesday afternoon, the Labor Cabinet offered Rufián to send him a car so that he could also attend an appointment with the PSOE
“I send you a car for a meeting at 7:30 p.m. at the Ministry of Labor”. With the proposal to meet him in Congress itself, the Vice President of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, made the last attempt on Wednesday afternoon with the ERC spokesman, Gabriel Rufián, to hold a meeting and save this party’s rejection of the labor reform. The announcement that a vehicle was being sent was made by Díaz’s team at the same time that the minister exchanged messages with Rufián and was informed that the PSOE would also attend, as a guarantee that everything that was agreed there would be fulfilled.
But Rufián did not go to the Ministry because what he did next, according to ERC sources, is to call the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, to certify it. His response was enlightening. “Do we have a meeting now?“Bolaños himself asked. “Is there any new content? So what for?” With these words he concluded any possibility that the Republican spokesman would accept this meeting and open a new negotiation.
“An Leap of Faith”
Throughout the afternoon Labor had tried to resuscitate the talks by sending successive proposals by email that, according to Republican sources, could not be revealed. It would have been, in any case, a secret pact. “They asked for a Act of faith“But ERC never agreed to change its position because what the Government proposed with the validation of the labor reform was a “swallow it”. It did not accept altering anything in the text previously agreed with the unions and employers.
For ERC, the fact that Diaz did not keep them informed of these negotiations was the “original sin” which has put an end to his negative vote on the labor reform. From this group, contrary to what the Ministry of Labor assures, they swear that they never knew the content of the conversations with the social agents. They know, they point out, that they spoke with the PNV and with other parliamentary groups, but the Republicans emphasize that they did not. They found out about the final agreement days before Christmas through the media and were completely unaware of its content.
In ERC they also explain that it was a misperception not to see that the repeal of the labor reform, in the terms in which the PSOE and United We Can had promised, was an essential issue for their group. They believe that Díaz did not understand it, that he thought that because it had been agreed with the unions, ERC would have no choice but to accept.
“zero pressure”
On the other hand, the socialists, according to republican sources, had it clearer from the beginning. With them there was only one meeting, on January 24, between the usual team of negotiators. Bolanos, Adriana Lastra, Maria Jesus Montero and Hector Gomez, on the side of the PSOE, and Ruffian, Martha Vilalta Y Josep Maria Jove, from ERC, and there it was clear that there was no option to touch the text of the labor reform. Not only that. The Republicans were notified that they did not endorse what they agreed with Díaz if it entailed a modification, also of complementary labor laws.
According to ERC this is the first time this has happened. There was a serious warranty issue, with which we had never come across”. They were aware that there was “zero pressure” of the PSOE towards them, which already made them sense that they were looking for other majorities. A sum that has finally arrived with Ciudadanos and a host of small parties. But it has come out miraculously. The two deputies of the Union of the Navarrese People (UPN) have voted against, despite the fact that the PSOE had agreed with its leader, Javier Esparza, your support.
the way to the right
The evidence that it was very difficult to have ERC is something that socialist sources also corroborate: “We were always clear that ERC did not enter”. “You have to know your negotiators,” they point out, referring to the fact that many issues have already been addressed with them and they know when there are options to reach an agreement and when not. That’s why they looked for the alternative way to the right. Despite the fact that it generated many doubts that everything depended on UPN, a party that normally votes with PP and Vox. In fact they occupy the space of the popular ones in Navarra. For this reason, the Socialists, although they gave ERC up for lost, did spend the last few hours trying to convince the PNV.
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The scope of ERC’s refusal, they reiterate in this formation, is something that the second vice president never understood. In fact, according to sources in this group, at times she even asked if she was the problem. If he was being punished because he will lead a platform to the left of the PSOE, as leader of the remnants of United We Can. “This is not understanding anything,” say Republican sources.
But on the afternoon of the vote, in which the Government has been a hair’s breadth away from losing the vote, it confirms, according to sources close to the vice president, that ERC could not ignore it and that if it did, it is because it was confident that it would succeed. “When Meritxell (the president of Congress) said that the reform was not validated, Rufián’s face was a poem,” they tell EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA, a newspaper belonging to the same publishing group as this medium. It has finally been approved due to an error by a PP deputy.