Junts per Catalunya and the PSOE began negotiations for the appointment of Pedro Sánchez last Saturday in Switzerland and, despite all discretion, the two parties confirmed their satisfaction with the start of contacts. It is clear that the days when the relationship between the two parties was zero are behind us. Junts, through his spokesman Josep Rius, has assured that the Socialists are respecting the agreement to the “millimeter” and has praised this negotiation before the “sterile” ERC dialogue table. The document signed in Brussels stipulated that in the first session they would deal with the referendum and the transfer of tax collection to the Generalitat and that this would be done with an auditor, ultimately the Salvadoran diplomat Francisco Galindo Vélez
Pedro Sánchez has claimed on Cadena Ser that the meeting corresponds to a “noble goal” and defended that it was held in Switzerland because one of the actors – Carles Puigdemont. that “he does not live in Spain”, recalling that the Aznar government met with ETA in that country in 1999. And Rius has countered that the independence movement has progressed further this past month than it has in years. The deputy also pointed to the achievements that, in his opinion, Junts has achieved: the amnesty law, the existence of an effective negotiating framework in Switzerland with an international verification mechanism, the process of recognizing the Catalan language in Europe and the promotion of two investigative commissions in Congress: on the 17-A attacks and Operation Catalonia.
In any case, the premise has not changed: Puigdemont said that Junts would pay in advance – the first payment is to process the amnesty law – and they strictly apply this method. Rius has in fact emphasized that the difference from the previous mandate is that the Socialists now need the seven votes of the Junts and that they will not give them “in exchange for nothing”. Their strategy is for lawmakers to make progress once agreements are fulfilled or progress is made in negotiations. And they warn that of course they won’t give the votes for free.
Junts accuses Feijóo of xenophobic statements because he criticized the mediator because of his Salvadoran origins
The meeting in Switzerland once again demonstrated the chronic fracture of the independence movement and that Sánchez and the PSOE will be forced to find a compromise. Junts has warned that it has no intention of sharing the negotiating table with the ERC or fulfilling the president’s request to unify the tables “because they ask me for the same things.” “We have negotiated an auditor that hasn’t existed before and that is a paradigm shift. The dialogue table is sterile and didn’t work,” said Rius. “And I deny the biggest thing. “We did not agree on the same thing.” Junts was excluded from the dialogue between Socialists and ERC and does not give the Republicans the slightest credit in enforcing pardons and criminal code reform.
After this first meeting, the right has strongly opposed these negotiations and, for example, neither PP nor Ciudadanos took part in the celebrations of the 45th anniversary of the Constitution this Monday in Catalonia. In fact, Rius has allied himself with the PSOE by criticizing the PP for blocking the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary – “This is what they are worried about in Europe” – and accusing Alberto Núñez Feijóo of making statements which came close to xenophobia when he declared that the diplomat Galindo Vélez was “a citizen of El Salvador who is an expert on guerrillas”, while criticizing the fact that he had to say how Spain should behave towards one of its autonomous communities . “We understand that the PP does not like the figure of the mediator because it internationalizes the conflict. “These are unfortunate phenomena and despising someone because of their origins is xenophobia.”
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Junts lives in a paradox: his negotiating strategy with the PSOE advances while differences are simmering within the party between the pragmatic sector led by Secretary General Jordi Turull and the sector led by Laura Borràs, according to statements by the secretary of the Mesa Aurora Madaula, similar to the former president, that she suffered “silent violence” from her colleagues at an event about women. The incident occurred when he signed a text without agreeing with the group. The party has opened an internal file – “We have activated the protocols” – and the president of the chamber, Anna Erra, has informed her that she has lost confidence in her.
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