Junts and PNV meet this Friday in Bilbao to share their political strategy

The bridges between Junts per Catalunya and PNV, battered by the process, have been rebuilt in this last year on a political level, since the personal relationships between the leaders of both organizations were not affected by the situation. Proof that harmony has returned between two spaces that had gone hand in hand in the elections to the European Parliament is that this Friday both groups meet in Bilbao, at Sabin Etxea, the headquarters of the jeltzales. They will share strategy and work on coordination with an eye toward the Congress of Deputies.

During the negotiations for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, JxCat and PNV have already coordinated and in recent weeks there have been two visits by the president of the Euzkadi Buru Batzar, Andoni Ortuzar, to Carles Puigdemont, who has controlled and directed the negotiation with the socialists in at all times although he lacks organic positions. In turn, the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, attended the annual festival of Basque nationalists, the Alderdi Eguna, at the end of September, and just a week ago both parties registered two requests for the creation of a joint party in the Lower House. investigation commissions, without the signature of Esquerra Republicana.

Thus, the event tomorrow at noon in the Biscayan city will be headed by Ortuzar and Turull. Joseba Aurrekoetxea, Ortuzar’s right hand, will also attend Sabin Etxea; his leader in the Congress of Deputies, Aitor Esteban; the spokesperson for JxCat in Madrid, Míriam Nogueras; and the president of the Parliament of Catalonia group, Albert Batet.

Since last spring, the ties between the two formations have strengthened and in the new political scenario, in which Sánchez depends on several parliamentary groups – among them Junts and the PNV – to carry out the legislature, both organizations will join forces , especially in the economic sphere, especially taking into account that some aspects of the socialists’ agreements with other forces on the left arouse suspicion in the post-convergent space and in the jeltzal ranks.

In that sense, on the same day that the agreement between Junts and the PSOE was signed in Brussels – the two signatories, Turull and Ferraz’s number three, Santos Cerdán, established the first contact before the general elections through the PNV – a prominent leader of JxCat valued the coordination with the Basques and admitted that in the program agreed between the socialists and Sumar there are issues that generate alarm in the most liberal wing and closest to the business of his party, due to issues such as the reduction of working hours work time at 37.5 hours, for example.

In fact, Junts has avoided being pigeonholed into the so-called progressive or left-wing bloc, a fact that, they themselves point out, differentiates them from ERC. “Esquerra is in the left-wing bloc and that means that on other issues it is not, in our opinion, as persistent and forceful as it needs to be,” Turull said in a recent interview with La Vanguardia.