There is no date for the appointment of the two presidents but the windows before the Andalusian ones narrow by the commitments of the chief executive
The Government blames the Generalitat for procrastinating, while in the Govern they ask content: clarifications, assumption of responsibilities and guarantees
More than two weeks after they were summoned to see each other, there is no date. Not even tentative. Any. There is no day, time and place for the meeting of Pedro Sánchez and Pere Aragonès, to try to get both to redirect relations and recompose the “confidence” broken by the ‘Pegasus case’. Officially, the two teams are “squaring agendas”, but what runs in the background is the political disagreement. The Government blames the Generalitat for procrastinating and not wanting to set the appointment, while the Government warns that a mere photo is not worth it of the two presidents, but they want content: documented explanations, assumption of responsibilities based on those explanations and guarantees that there will be no new espionage of the independence movement.
Until last Wednesday, Moncloa was very reluctant to reveal what was happening, why the interview between Sánchez and Aragonès was not scheduled. It covered everything under the patina of normal. But that day, something changed. The president, in the session of control to the Executive in the Congress, gave to understand that it was the Generalitat the one that fled from the meeting: “Of course, the Government of Spain is willing to meetin my case, with the ‘president’ of the Generalitat de Catalunya or with the dialogue table when you consider also the Catalan part“.
Last Wednesday, the Moncloa speech changed: Sánchez assured that he was willing to meet with Aragonès or convene the dialogue table “when the Catalan side also considers it”
Executive sources confirmed right after that yes, it was the Government that was putting down hits for the office of the two presidents. So the windows of opportunity narrow: this week, it would only be available on Friday the 27th, because Sánchez attends the Davos Economic Forum on Monday and Tuesday, he returns on Wednesday and on Thursday he appears in the lower house to account for the ‘Pegasus case’. The following week, the gaps are scarce, because the president participates in the informal EU summit in Brussels Monday 30 and Tuesday 31 of May. And on Friday, June 3, the Andalusian election campaign begins.
From Moncloa it is recognized that with the 19-J elections already underway, and with very bleak prospects for the PSOE and for its candidate, Juan Espadas, it seems very unlikely that the meeting with Aragonès can be held, an appointment that would be immediately used by the PP and Vox as a throwing weapon. And, for the socialists, Andalusia is not a minor community: It has been his fetish territory and electoral granary, lost in 2018 after 37 years occupying the Board and key to a general election. However, at the heights of the Executive they insist that the commitment to dialogue is clear and will not be renounced and that dialogue with the Govern has not been interrupted in any moment.
The departure of the investigation commission
The most immediate focus, therefore, would be on Thursday’s appearance. In Moncloa they are still working on the president’s speech, and therefore there are still no decisions to be made. Between them, if you will announce any more step to try to calm ERC, such as the ex officio declassification of the judicial authorizations that supported the monitoring of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) to 18 pro-independence leaders. Sánchez’s team considered that option, but decided, at least until now, to proceed to lift the secret only if requested by Justice. A member of the Cabinet advises against changing criteria: “It cannot be that we declassify based on political interest.We declassify whatever we want? I don’t know what world the independentistas live in.”
The Government considered declassifying the judicial authorizations ex officio, but later decided that it would do so at the request of the judge. But Sánchez’s speech on Thursday will be key
Sánchez also opened the door on Wednesday to modify the regulatory law of the CNI, as demands the PNV. The Ombudsman, in the report which he also made public on Wednesday and with which he concluded his investigation into the actions of the intelligence services, gave his endorsement to the espionage of sovereignty, but also pointed out the path of improve judicial control of the CNIchanging the norm. In the Socialist Group they warn that this option “is not on the exit ramp” and that it entails “risks“, because the PP would not enter into that negotiation and the investiture partners can “block” the processing or pretend to “open the CNI channel”.
Another way out on the table is for the PSOE to accept the investigation commission that United We Can and the nationalists registered in Congress to investigate the sewers of the State. The Socialists are tempted to use that instrument to launch it against the PP now that new audios of Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo with former party leaders have been discovered. However, both the leadership of the group and members of the Executive understand that this solution would not satisfy ERCwhich demands bilateral treatment, and would have “in dance” again to state institutions.
In any case, the assessment of the Government and PSOE is that the ‘Pegasus case’ has been flattened after the dismissal of the head of the CNI, Paz Esteban. “The issue is not amortized, but we believe that what had to be done has been done, that it has been well focused and that things are reasonably on track. Podemos has changed its attitude and ERC has lowered decibels,” says a minister. “It is an issue already out of focuswithout much travel”, abound from the parliamentary leadership. In Moncloa they are aware that it is necessary to recover the relationship with the Republicans, key partners of the legislature, because there is still a year and a half until the general elections and many initiatives to be processed. At the same time, they warn that two fundamental decrees, the labor reform and the shock plan in response to the war in Ukraine, went ahead with ERC installed as No. That is, the Executive will not abandon the variable geometry. “Now, I don’t think we’ll want to play it so much: as long as the PP is like this, we can’t give up the partners.”
“It has to be executive”
The Government, meanwhile, openly accepts that they are the ones avoiding the immediate holding of the meeting, basically, they point, because they fear (to put it mildly) that the message conveyed by the Palau de la Generalitat has not been well unraveled by the Moncloa. For the Executiu, and specifically, Aragonès, the summit It is not the only act that Sánchez must carry out, an appointment with which to settle the controversy. In fact, neither the only nor the first. “The meeting has to be executive and for this the ‘president’ must have all the information & rdquor ;. The Government has reiterated that it has “nothing to hide” because nothing has been done outside the law.
The Government demands to know who, how, to whom, for how long and at what times members of the independence movement were spied on, in order to later clarify responsibilities. But Robles will not fall
Therefore, the Republicans demand an exercise of transparency to know who, how, to whom, for how long and at what times members of the independence movement were spied on. Without this information, the second great demand of the Generalitat, the assumption of responsibilities, cannot be undertaken. In Sánchez’s team they are already warning that the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, will not fall, and even less so a month before the NATO summit in Madrid. Robles, in addition, has shielded herself by placing her second, Esperanza Casteleiro, at the head of the CNI.
In the Executiu they do not exclude any possibility such as, for example, the appearance of dates of infection of mobile terminals that fit more with political negotiations than with riots in the street. “How is the CNI, which has to ensure the integrity of the country, not going to investigate those who say they will do it again?” answers a minister who is not at all hostile to sovereignty. “And if they were negotiating, before an ERC who says he will do it again, does he stop investigating?”
They remember and underline in the Government that the espionage of the conversations between ERC and the ‘comuns’ after the municipal elections already supposes a change of stage. They are impossible to cover under the cloak of an eventual danger of constitutional breach and are already located, depending on how the information collected is used, in facilitate a position of political advantage to one of the parties in litigation for the mayor of the Catalan capital, the PSC.
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The summary is that the controversy, for the Generalitat, “far from being settled” and that Sánchez must move and transfer information to Aragonès. Later, “purge responsibilities& rdquor ;, although it is not possible to calculate how far they can go “until what has happened is known & rdquor ;. And, finally, in that meeting to be held, Sánchez “should prepare mechanisms that give guarantee that such a scandal is not going to happen again & rdquor ;.
And if the deadlines are extended or if that declassification does not occur? “They will find it&rdquor ;, a source from Palau calmly responds. Where? In Congress, of course. “How many votes can they get ahead with the PP? & rdquor ;, asks this voice.