The next July 23th will be decided if the decision of Pedro Sanchez to summon general elections after the municipal and regional crash of the PSOE and in midsummer it was spot on. But the success or failure of her ‘all or nothing’ is not only subject to her own result at the polls, but to the weight obtained by her potential partners. He independenceinjured by the play that separated Xavier Trias of the mayor’s office of Barcelona in favor of Jaume Collboni with the votes of the commons and the PP, looks decisive in the Congress of Deputies to boost (or not) Sánchez before a Alberto Núñez Feijóo to whom the polls give the victory.
So much so that the campaign teams design the fortnight circling the message launched by the ‘president’ Pere Aragones: we must “move from a dynamic of competition to one of cooperation” and put a “price” attached to an investiture of Sanchez. Against all odds, the CUP was the first political force that opened the door to give its votes to the socialist candidate, setting as a condition the date and the question for the holding of a referendum on the independence of catalonia.
In 2019, that ‘price’ was the dialogue table. Esquerra had a free hand in Madrid due to its 13 deputies, compared to the distribution of four and four after the Junts-PDECat divorce and the two ‘cuperos’. The Republicans wrested from the PSOE the commitment that the agreements that came out of the forum between the Government and the Generalitat would be submitted to a consultation so that the citizens of Catalonia would endorse them. But three and a half years after that, and with the table on ‘stand by’ after the Pardons for the prisoners of 1-O and the reform of the Penal Code that softened the penalties, Esquerra launched the second phase: that of the referendum. Hence the impulse of a clarity agreementwhose work has been postponed until September, precisely because of the appointment with the polls this July, and the commitment to the ‘via Montenegro’ with which they hope to put pressure on the PSOE, if it repeats in Moncloa.
The ‘president”s assignment to the parties was clear and there are voices in the Esquerra that reject that the Government tries to dictate the deadlines and strategies of the groups in the Congress of Deputies, an attitude that has already disfigured the ‘ex-president’ Quim Torra four years ago. The Republican leadership is convinced that it is necessary to influence Madrid again and that this ‘price’ will include, in one way or another, self-determination and shielding of the Catalan language and culture“so that what happened with the PP and Vox in the Valencian Community can never happen.”
The Puigdemont factor
But, beyond the scrutiny on the night of July 23, there are other factors that will modulate the collection that will be required. And it is that if the negotiation between the PSOE and ERC was marked by the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on oriol junqueras that recognized his immunity as a member of the European Parliament against the criteria of the Supreme Court, this time there will be another ruling that can alter the script and it is that of the General Court of the European Union (TGUE), which will rule on the immunity of the ‘ex-president’ Carlos Puigdemontnext July 5, a few hours from the poster hanging.
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The decision, whatever it is, raises by itself the ‘price’ that Junts will claim from Sánchez, already high after the Barcelona ousted Trias, say party sources. And it is that if Puigdemont wins in Europe, it will be a revulsion but, if not, it will become another battering ram in a melee campaign with ERC, whom they will seek to blame for a “failure” of the dialogue table.
Post-convergence assumes that the condition passes through the referendum, but there may be others depending on the outcome of Puigdemont. They believe that the Spanish presidency of the EU can be a pro-independence showcase and they refuse to ‘save’ Sánchez even if that implies a PP-Vox government: “Let them know that we will not invest Sánchez for fear of the extreme right”.