Pere Aragonès insisted this Tuesday that today’s PSC is very far from the Catalanism that the party advocated when Pasqual Maragall led it. Oriol Junqueras also said something similar in the morning: “he has shown very often that he is not left-wing and not very Catalan.” The two see an agreement with Illa’s formation as difficult, but seeing it as complicated does not mean ruling it out.
That this is so is due to two factors. First, because in the Republican ranks, if ERC is not ranked above JxCat, they do not see it as crazy that the PSC, in exchange for its support, would end up accepting Aragonès’s proposal for singular financing – a milestone marked in the short term – or, even laying the foundations for a referendum – perhaps a longer-term milestone. And second, because it is the party that has the most voters on the border with other formations and in addition the ERC electorate is divided between those who want to form an independence government or repeat a tripartite with the PSC and the commons. Of course, for some of the latter the condition of the referendum is essential.
“According to the results of May 12, there will be a debate after the elections, that’s for sure,” they point out from the Republican ranks in favor of not seeing Junts even in painting. The list of grievances carried out during the last term by the formation of Carles Puigdemont is endless.
Junqueras, on the other hand, before leading the campaign event in Olot, charged left and right against the PSC. He recalled that Illa demonstrated in October 2017 “alongside the right and the extreme right, with the PP and Vox against the [1-O] referendum.” And he assured for this reason that he is not surprised that the PP offers to agree with the PSC. However, he avoided directly answering the question of whether ERC would reach an agreement with the socialists after May 12.
In any case, Aragonès’ preference is a pro-independence government. Along with the referendum and financing, it places the condition of reinforcing social welfare and the Catalan language. The president has made it clear that the door with the PSC for an agreement is almost closed. But light filters into the gap between the page and the frame when he repeats day after day that he hopes to articulate “a vast majority based on the proposals, and not based on the labels.” The last time, this Tuesday, in the interview on Cadena Ser. He said it even more clearly later: “If majorities are made based on what your proposals are, then it will be much easier.”
Today, ERC agrees at all levels with the PSC: in Barcelona City Council they supported Jaume Collboni’s budgets; The Republicans govern together with the Socialists three of the four councils – Barcelona, ??Lleida and Tarragona -; Illa supported the last two accounts presented by the Generalitat, and in Congress, the Junqueras party has several times boasted of being a “reliable” party before the PSOE.
