The two Catalan independence parties with representation in Congress do not share unity of action, but they act almost the same: with the flag of silence. It is only broken by two switchboards: in Esquerra, the one installed in Switzerland with the voice of its secretary general, Marta Rovira, and Junts, located in Waterloo, with ex-president Carles Puigdemont, and the secretary general, Jordi Turull, covering it from Catalonia. It will only be known if the strategy of not airing the contacts in the media has been profitable just before 10 am today, when the constitution session of Congress begins.
The competition for revenues from silence will emerge. Self-determination, amnesty, Catalan in the Courts, investigating espionage with Pegasus are part of the demands.
Aina Vidal, number one of the commons, interpreted Junts’ silence as “a good sign”. The post-convergents meet at eight in the morning electronically. It is planned that it will be then when the majority of Junts management members will know about Puigdemont’s proposal. It remains to be seen if the former president will be present at the meeting. In previous meetings, such as those where they had to decide whether to leave the Government, he was not there.
At ERC so far only the members of the management have shared information. Yesterday afternoon they still did not have an agreement with the PSOE and only planned to call the executive if progress was made in the negotiation. “We have been warning for days that it was reckless to take ERC’s votes for granted,” sources say.
The position of the pro-independence parties is crucial for the formation of the Bureau. The bloc led by the Socialists needs the contest of at least one of the two. From here, Coalició Canària could be key to tipping the balance in one direction or another if ERC or Junts (more likely the latter) are inclined to abstain or vote null. Socialist Francina Armengol is waiting to be elected president of Congress.
Yesterday, Puigdemont claimed “verifiable facts before committing to any vote”. The media flash on the part of ERC was given by Marta Rovira, to reject the gesture of Pedro Sánchez, who pledged to promote the use of Catalan in Europe. “You already assumed this and sealed it in the agreements of the negotiation table on July 7, 2022”, he recalled. It has not been fulfilled.
