Jaume Asens and his vocation to be the ‘three in one’ for the investiture

It was the same election night, in full fervor for having come second in the general elections in Catalonia, but also fully aware of the devilish arithmetic that was before them for the investiture of Pedro Sanchez, when Albiach put on the table the name of someone who understood that he could act as ‘3 in one’ – a popular brand of multi-purpose oil – to lubricate relationships. The next day, the leader of Sumar formally commissioned Asense to act as a liaison.

It was the opportunity to “recover” someone who shortly before he had left the front line of politics through the back door after being abruptly replaced as a candidate for the general elections and, also, giving himself a central role in the negotiation, taking advantage of the good ties that Asens has with the independence movement and, very particularly, with the ‘ex-conseller’ Toni Cominfriendship that also connects him with Carles Puigdemont, the most sought-after leader for squaring the circle. Nobody else in the Commons, not even the MEP Ernest Urtasunwho in recent years has coincided in time and space with the ‘former president’ in the European Parliament, have such a fluid thread with Waterloo.

So the benefit is mutual: Sumar and the Comuns boast to the socialists that they have a direct line with Puigdemont via Asens, which allows Díaz vindicates himself as mortar of the investiture, and Asens returns to the fore sporting a profile, that of being close to the independence movement, which paradoxically was previously viewed with suspicion in a part of his own space, to the point of considering him unsuitable to repeat as head of list. “He is playing the role of his life, acting as a mediator, which is in his DNA. By building bridges he is happy,” they maintain from those around him.

The Commons highlight the role as main Catalan interlocutor of a leader who, a lawyer by profession, advised the 1-O leaders who decided to leave for Belgium after the declaration of independence in 2017 and has been a firm defender of pardons, the reform of the penal code and the referendum. Before visiting him in Brussels and taking a photograph that would publicly rehabilitate him as a valid interlocutor, the leader of Sumar I talk on the phone with the ‘ex-president’ to prepare the meeting after the efforts made by Asens, who since July 23 has traveled on several occasions not only to speak with Puigdemont, but also with other actors necessary for the sum. The latest move that he has made, as EL PERIÓDICO has learned, has had to do with the Government’s offer to assume the cost of making Catalan official in the European Union.

The PSC reduces the role of the Commons

However, at the top of the PSC they lower that role of the former president of Unidas Podemos in Congress and they frame it more in an attempt by those of Díaz not to be relegated from the focus of negotiations that will end up being a matter of two in their final phase. They even consider that the Asens’ media exposure is excessive if everything is to come to fruition, which, Illa insists, requires discretion. “We also have leaders with good relationship with Junts and Puigdemont“reply the Catalan socialists, who boast of having cultivated links with the post-convergents in recent years, whom they have always considered a political actor to take into account and with whom they have collaborated in the opposition in the Parliament since they broke with ERC in the Government.

For now, Illa’s party claims to have not received the order from Pedro Sánchez to participate in a direct dialogue with Puigdemont, who is pending the failure of the investiture of Alberto Núñez Feijóo to be formally activated, but they will assume what the leader of the PSOE asks of them. The leader of the PSC He doesn’t know Puigdemont, with whom he has not crossed paths during his political career, but beyond the ability of the ‘first secretary’ to negotiate if he is asked to do so, they affirm that there are cadres in the party to whom the ‘former president’ would pick up the phone. Without going any further, they cite names such as that of the ‘former president’ José Montila or that of the mayor of l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Núria Marín. “We don’t need anyone to save our lives,” they say in reference to Asens’ vocation to act as a mediator.

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However, the leader of the PSC asked to meet with Asens before July 23, contacts for which the leader of the Comuns asked Ada Colau for permission -at that time he had said goodbye by letter to the front line of politics- and which have also continued afterwards. “In the puzzle of trust outside the space, Asens had as a pending challenge this frank dialogue with a socialist leader after the misgivings and stigma they had of him due to his proximity to the independence movement. That has changed,” say sources from his environment.

Illa’s trip to Brussels

Salvador Illa has scheduled a trip to Brussels on October 11 and 12, a visit he has made every autumn since he took the reins of the party to meet with European leaders. The PSC leadership assures that it is not planned to meet with the ‘former president’ and also an MEP, although there are still weeks ahead for the plans of both parties to be altered. Although the Commons detect that, despite being difficult, the agreement for the investiture is not impossible and there is “a way to go”in the PSC, following in the wake of the PSOE this week, they prescribe caution and they gauge the impact it could have on their electoral expectations in Catalonia if an amnesty – or an equivalent figure that would erase the criminal record of those prosecuted by the ‘procés’ – would allow Oriol Junqueras and Puigdemont himself could run in the next elections.