Needing the collaboration of both ERC and Junts to carry out each of its initiatives in Congress, the Government admits that its double dependence on the parties Catalan independentists complicates agreements. The assignments Post-convergents tend to annoy Republicans and vice versa. This Wednesday the counterparts fell on the side of the party of Carles Puigdemont. In exchange for the abstention of its seven deputies in the first three royal decrees of the legislature, which contained important social measures, Junts obtained the commitment that a future organic law will delegate to the Generalitat the migration skills, the assumption by the State of the bonuses to public transport in Catalonia, a reform of the company law to promote the return to the autonomous community of the companies who left during the 2017 ‘procés’, the “immediate” publication of the fiscal balances and the reduction of VAT to 0% oil, which until now stood at 5%.
The surprise and discomfort of the ERC deputies was evident when this agreement became known. To change this climate with a party that was already crucial in the last legislature, unlike Junts, the Minister of Justice and Presidency, Felix Bolaños, He spoke first this Thursday morning with the Government of Pere Aragones. Bolaños’ relations with the Republicans are very fluid and established. The Catalan Executive, in addition, will be the one who has to calculate the scales, as well as manage future competitions of immigration.
In a symptom of this rarefied atmosphere between socialists and republicans, Government sources later explained that this Thursday morning the Minister of the Presidency, Laura Vilagrà, He has sent a message to Bolaños asking him for explanations for the agreement. According to the same interlocutors, Vilagrà has obtained a commitment from the minister that the Generalitat would be informed, but by mid-morning they had not yet spoken. The Bolaños team confirms that “it has maintained contacts with the Government”, but avoiding specifying how and with whom.
In an interview on La 1, the minister confirmed all these compensations to Junts in exchange for some decrees that include free public transport for frequent users, the increase in pensions, the suspension of the evictions mortgages for vulnerable families and reforms that are a precondition for receiving an important part of the 10,000 million euros coming from the European funds.
But the agreement with the post-convergents still has much to specify. For example, in immigration matters. The delegation of powers to Catalonia will have to be carried out through a organic Law (which implies 176 votes in favor in Congress: that is, the support of the investiture bloc), but it remains unclear what it will consist of. The Ministries of the Interior and Inclusion, on which these powers now fall, do not know for the moment what their content will be.
The amnesty
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There are other aspects of the pact with Puigdemont’s party that not change absolutely nothing compared to the previous situation, according to the Government. Bolaños has downplayed the importance of the agreement to repeal the article 43bis of the Civil Procedure Law which, according to Junts, “put in danger” the application of the future amnesty law. “Nothing changes,” the minister said. The courts, he has continued, will be able to continue raising preliminary issues to the High Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), with the possibility of suspending a rule until there is a resolution. “The Supreme Court and the CJEU say so,” he said.
Even so, it has justified the withdrawal of this precept because “the priority” was to validate the rest of the package with the Justice reform. The head of the Presidency and Justice has also defended that with the approval of all the reform contained in the decree, although with the exclusion of this point, it will be enough to comply with what was agreed with Brussels and access the next disbursement of European funds. Initially, the inclusion of this article, however, was justified because it was necessary to receive the following section of 10,000 million euros. “It is a commitment with the European Commission. “Request that we incorporate this jurisprudence into Spanish legislation,” Bolaños said on December 28.