2023-11-02 22:50:11
The negotiation to invest Pedro Sánchez as president experienced its most critical hours this Thursday. At the same time that the socialists managed to secure the support of ERC in Barcelona, things were getting complicated in Brussels. The PSOE and Junts encountered a last-minute obstacle that the negotiating teams were not able to resolve throughout the day: the specific point of the articles that details which cases would be excluded from the benefits of the amnesty law. A single paragraph of a text of sixteen articles, a preamble and two additional provisions, but whose content is considered high voltage for both parties.
Junqueras, about Junts: “We would like everyone to act with maximum responsibility”
The initial desire of the PSOE was to be able to make official a definitive agreement that would allow the bill to be immediately registered in Congress and clear the way for Sánchez to be re-elected next week. But things got complicated late on Wednesday. Until the early hours of the holiday, the socialists and the Catalan independentists of Junts were exchanging drafts with the different proposals to overcome the clash. Unsuccessfully.
The possibility of stopping the negotiations to try to redirect them at another time was even planned in the meetings held in Brussels this Thursday, although in the end contacts were maintained in search of a solution. Negotiation sources did not rule out at the end of the day that the agreement could end up being finalized on Friday and, in any case, they moved away the scenario of a definitive break.
At Junts they downplay the possibility that the investiture plenary session cannot be held next week, as the PSOE intends, and remember that the legal limit until November 27 still leaves room for negotiation. The haste of the socialists, they add, is not theirs in this case.
Carles Puigdemont spoke along those lines on Thursday night. “We have always said that when dealing with the Spanish political system, all precautions are too few,” he tweeted, adding: “We will not change the prudence and precautions that we have maintained until now no matter how hasty some are.”
We have always said that to deal with the Spanish political system all precautions are few. We stick to it, and we stick to it. We will not change the prudence and precautions we have maintained until now no matter how hastily some may be.
— krls.eth / Carles Puigdemont (@KRLS) November 2, 2023
Meanwhile, the PSOE officially closed the agreement with ERC that guarantees the vote of its seven deputies in favor of the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. This pact includes agreements on Rodalies (Catalan commuter trains), financing, a reinvigoration of the dialogue table and an agreement on the amnesty law.
The most important measure is the transfer of Rodalies, which would go from the Ministry of Transport to the Generalitat. The agreement, made public this Thursday by the two formations, will involve the creation of a mixed company between the State and the Generalitat to complete the transfer to Catalonia of both the funds necessary for railway management and the ownership of the road network. and the trains. The leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, and the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, sealed the agreement with a handshake in Barcelona.
“The amnesty law will make society more livable, it will return to politics what should never have left politics,” Bolaños said during an appearance with Salvador Illa at the headquarters of the Catalan socialists. When asked by the press, the PSOE negotiator wanted to be cautious about the conversations with Junts and explained that they are keeping contacts alive about the “latest details” of the rule, already closed with ERC.
The agreement closed with ERC contemplates for the first time the figure of the “verifier”, in addition to the need for “the agreements reached as a political result of the dialogue to be endorsed by citizens.” A latter aspect that was already included in the political agreement reached for Sánchez’s investiture in 2020.
“Today we are closer to the investiture of Pedro Sánchez,” the first secretary of the Catalan socialists celebrated alongside Bolaños, who urged Junts to close an agreement now: “We cannot give any option to the right and the extreme right.” Internally, Illa praised the “unity” of the Catalan socialists and the PSOE to reissue the progressive coalition government.
“Catalonia wins”
Félix Bolaños and Oriol Junqueras signed the agreement between the PSOE and ERC with a handshake. After the minister’s press conference, the leader of the Republicans also appeared publicly to celebrate the pact. “Catalonia wins,” Junqueras said as a summary of the agreements obtained from the PSOE.
He also had words for Junts, which are negotiating in parallel with the socialists, about the content of the agreement. “We would like everyone to act with maximum responsibility,” he warned. During the press conference, Junqueras assessed the different aspects of the agreement reached. In terms of financing, the improvement of which ERC demanded, he detailed the forgiveness of a part of the FLA debt, 15,000 million euros – a mechanism from which the rest of the autonomous communities will benefit, including those of the PP –, in addition to 1,300 in interest that will be available to spend “on social policies.” The ERC leader acknowledged that this measure is far from the end of the fiscal deficit denounced by the Generalitat, which amounts to 22,000 million a year, but he defended that it is “the most important step” that has been taken in years in terms of financing.
With the support of ERC and Sumar sealed, and with the votes of PNV, EH Bildu and BNG approved, all eyes return to where they were on the night of July 23: to the decisive role of Carles Puigdemont, the seven Junts deputies and the amnesty law to make the investiture of Pedro Sánchez and the reissue of the progressive coalition government possible.
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