The PSOE and the Junts have reached the agreement that clears the way for the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez, which will take place in the coming days, according to negotiating sources. The agreement with PNV still needs to be signed, but the socialists assure that it is very advanced and just needs to be concluded. Everything was prepared to seal the pact with Junts on Thursday last week, but negotiations were delayed for seven days, particularly due to fears among independents that unclear legal text could exclude some people from the amnesty. People around Carles Puigdemont. They feared any detail would open the door for some judges who clearly oppose it to find a loophole in the law to not apply it in their cases.
After a few intense days of technical negotiations with Santos Cerdán, the PSOE’s number three in Brussels, and Puigdemont at the head of the Junts team, the agreement was concluded early on Thursday in the Belgian capital. The law still needs to be technically defined between the teams as it still lacks some “margins” to ensure its constitutionality and ensure that it covers all agreed cases. That is why the law will not be presented today, but later, but the political agreement has already been reached and there seems to be no turning back. The Junts bases must agree to this decision, but no surprises are expected. The pact not only includes the amnesty, there is also the so-called political agreement – which includes a dialogue table between the parties with a mediator – the details of which are to be announced this Thursday.
There have been concerns in recent days about the delay in the agreement, but there was no feeling from either party that the pact was at risk. Once the investiture is completed, it is difficult to arrive this week as a lot of strength would be required, but it could be as soon as the next one begins, Monday and Tuesday, or in the middle of the week, Wednesday and Thursday, when the law is passed the following It will be registered on Monday in order to refine it over the weekend and also to agree it with the other groups that have to sign it. The idea of the PSOE is that the norm bears the signature of all parties that will support the investiture: PSOE, Sumar, ERC, Junts, PNV, Bildu and BNG.
Everything is already planned to make the agreement official in Brussels with a photo that will feature Jordi Turull, secretary general of the Junts, and Santos Cerdán, organizing secretary of the PSOE. Both acted as fully trusted delegates to Carles Puigdemont and Pedro Sánchez respectively. A small group of people from Junts management is currently traveling from Barcelona to Brussels to take part in the ceremony to formalize the agreement. The Junts boss will undoubtedly also want to explain an agreement that he has been working on personally for three months, after the election result made him a crucial figure in Spanish politics after six years in Belgium, escaped from Spanish justice and removed from the heart of the decisions.
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The noise of the ultra-group riots against the amnesty in Madrid is not the only thing that has resonated with PSOE and Junts negotiators in Brussels in recent days. The reaction of the judiciary has been heard even more clearly, from the institutional declaration against the clemency measure promoted by the conservative majority of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) to the short-term measures taken by the judge of the National Court Manuel García-Castellón suing the former president Carles Puigdemont for the Tsunami Democràtic case. Contrary to the opinion of the public prosecutor, the judge sees possible terrorist crimes in this case and his message ultimately convinced the two negotiating parties that the agreed law must be protected. “There should be no other possible interpretation,” the parties claim. The negotiations in the last few hours were not political, but were in the hands of legal experts on both sides. All parties confirm that they are the ones who analyze the “swapped” roles in a “constant flow” that was never interrupted.
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Negotiating sources assure that García-Castellón’s order of Monday resulted in Junts wanting to review individually all the articles of a law that was already practically finalized. They had to be 100% sure that judges like the judge who listed Puigdemont and Rovira as defendants and was among those who would have to apply the amnesty could not find loopholes in the law to leave a law so difficult to negotiate nothing . Junts fears that the same thing will happen as with the reform that included the abolition of the crime of sedition and the change of the crime of embezzlement, which effectively came to nothing when the Supreme Court ruled that these changes did not apply to the cases against the Guides are applicable to the process. .
The law must be “inviolable” and “legally perfected,” say sources familiar with the negotiations, because there must be no crack at any point in the legislative path it must take that makes it vulnerable. “We know they will analyze the law” and use “the best of their people” to look for vulnerabilities, the sources consulted said.
There were concerns in the PSOE about the delay, but the most informed leaders were sure that an investiture would take place. Sánchez himself, who went to the headquarters on Ferraz Street on Wednesday to support the PSOE workers, sent a clear message to reassure everyone. “There will be a government and we will continue for four more years,” he assured, taking the agreement for granted. The Socialists also believe that the violent protests serve to remind many progressives why they voted for the PSOE or Sumar in the July 23 general elections: above all, to prevent someone like Santiago Abascal from encouraging these protests and calling on the police to disobey the government, former vice president of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. This pressure could therefore be counterproductive for the right and serve as glue for a left unsettled by the delay in investiture, say several leaders.
Junts wasn’t in as much of a hurry as the PSOE. Every day that passed meant a new role for Carles Puigdemont and allowed him to distance himself from the agreement that the PSOE made with Esquerra last week. An agreement that activates the handover of local trains to the Generalitat and gives the green light to reduce Catalonia’s debt to the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (15,000 million euros) by almost 20%.
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