Felix Bolaños in Barcelona and Santos Cerdan in Brussels. When the PSOE agreed a little less than four years ago to abstain from ERC to elect Pedro Sanchez As President of the Government, the negotiation had the Congress of Deputies as its epicenter. It was a neutral space, appropriate to the matter in question: the conversations were in theory between the parliamentary groups, and the investment, Like all, it was going to be voted on in the lower house. But this time, after the general elections of July 23, everything is much more complicated. The socialists need the affirmative vote of the Republicans. In an even more difficult situation, also that of Together for Catalonia, a party less inclined to the pact. They need another staging. So Bolaños, acting Minister of the Presidency, moved to the Catalan capital. Cerdán, secretary of Organization of the PSOE, to the Belgian, where he is Carles Puigdemont, the leader on whom Sánchez’s investiture depends.
Everything was designed to close the agreements with the Republicans and the post-convergents this Thursday. But the socialists did not fulfill their goals. For now. Bolaños and the president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, they sealed a broad understanding, which covers the amnesty law (including the cases open to the CDR, the Democratic Tsunami and the police officers prosecuted for injuries during the charges of the referendum of 1-O), the reissue of the dialogue table between the central government and the Generalitat, the transfer of Rodalies and the partial forgiveness of Catalonia’s debt, as EL PERIÓDICO advanced. With Puigdemont, however, the negotiation became complicated in the Last moment.
Early in the morning, the PSOE hoped to stage the pact with Junts. Cerdán had returned to Brussels, where he met last Monday with the former president of the Generalitat, and was planning, according to sources familiar with the conversations, to sign the agreement there with Jordi Turull, secretary general of the post-convergents, and then appear to give account of what was agreed. The scenery is not without an eccentric component: an agreement for the governability of Spain announced from the Belgian capital, to which Puigdemont moved fleeing the courts.
What happened to make the plan go awry? According to the same sources, socialists and post-convergents already have practically everything closed. The mediator, who also appears in the agreement with ERC, in the absence of knowing whether it will be a international figure, something that the PSOE has opposed during these months. The recognition of the status of Catalonia. The general lines of the amnesty law, including the preamble, transcendental for the interpretation and execution of the norm. But there is a “minor” detail missing, the socialists explained, an obstacle that neither of them specified. And the negotiation was stagnant.
The temporary scenario
But only up to this Friday, the socialists expect. Puigdemont, on whom Junts’ final decision revolves almost exclusively, has a reputation for “unpredictable” leader, Sánchez’s collaborators recognize. At the same time, they trust that the pact will become a reality in Brussels imminently. Junts also contemplates this optimistic scenario.
“We have given ourselves a few hours of Mutual agreement, and then continue talking,” they explained to the PSOE leadership late in the afternoon. “We hope that soon this agreement is completed,” said Bolaños during his appearance in Barcelona with the leader of the PSC, Salvador Illa. “We have always said that to deal with the Spanish political system, all caution is too little. We maintain ourselves and strengthen ourselves. We will not change the prudence that we have maintained until now, no matter how much hurry some are in,” Puigdemont himself later wrote on X (the old Twitter).
We always keep in mind that all precautions are necessary to deal with the Spanish political system. Ens hi maintenance, and ens hi refermem. We will not change the prudence and precautions that we have maintained only for more pressure than some tinguin.
— krls.eth / Carles Puigdemont (@KRLS) November 2, 2023
The agreements with Bildu, the PNV, the BNG and perhaps the Canarian Coalition, But here the acting president’s team does not anticipate major problems. The touchstone of the entire negotiation has always revolved around Puigdemont, whose history of understanding with the PSOE it is practically nil.
The socialists, who in recent months have equated the turn that Junts has to make, going from permanent confrontation to agreement, with that of a “transatlantic”, They consider that the point of “no return” has already been reached. Cautiously, they are betting that there will be an agreement, hopefully this Friday. If this forecast comes true, they will then register the amnesty law in the Congress of Deputies and announce the investiture date. The debate in the lower house is expected on November 8 and 9, Wednesday and Thursday of next week, and Sánchez would be re-elected in first vote, thanks to the baggy absolute majority provided by the votes of the PSOE, Sumar and Catalan, Basque and Galician sovereignty.
The understanding with Junqueras
Related news
Meanwhile, the PSOE already has the support of ERC, a party that until a few days ago assured that the pact was still “far away.” But on Tuesday night the amnesty law was agreed upon. This Thursday everything else arrived. The transfer of Rodalies, which will become a reality through a JV between the State and the Generalitat, although the economic amount is only partially detailed. The new one dialogue table, in which the leaders of Junts could also participate, since the status of member of the central Executive and the Government is not essential. He mediator to monitor the development and compliance of what was negotiated, which will be according to the document signed by the PSOE and ERC “a person of recognized prestige.” The 20% forgiveness of what Catalonia owes (which will also be extended to the rest of the autonomies) for having joined the Autonomous Liquidity Fund: 15,000 million euros and a saving of about 1,300 million in interest.
The next step would be State’s general budgets, to which the agreement of socialists and republicans alludes by underlining the “will to approve the main legislative milestones” of the new mandate. “The continuity of the legislature “It will depend on the agreements being fulfilled,” Junqueras said during his appearance. The Republicans will submit the understanding to the vote of its militants. Junts also plans to carry out a similar consultation, but to reach it there is still a lack of precondition, on which everything depends: that Puigdemont seals the pact.