On paper, Junts per Catalunya did not want to reveal anything yesterday about its contacts with the Popular Party a few months ago. In the misunderstandings, however, there was a little more content. A warning that the formation may open its mouth later, even if it does not want to do so now, no matter how much Esquerra Republicana takes the opportunity to ask them for transparency and, incidentally, try to wear down its former partner and rival to talk to the popular ones
“We have already said what we had to say about the meetings with the PP, and if we have to add something else, we will,” Josep Rius, vice-president and spokesperson of the training, in the press conference following the meeting of Carles Puigdemont’s party leadership. The deputy also did not leave the established script and gave this answer to all the journalists who questioned him about an affair that since Sunday has been the most discussed in political talk shows, when there is less than a week left for the Galician elections .
In any case, the post-convergents avoid assessing in public whether the PP’s recognition of the talks on pardons and amnesty responds to a damage control strategy and a controlled explosion, in view of the risk that Puigdemont is talking about, or if it is a stumble in the middle campaign What they do do is play, in the misunderstandings, with the possibility of talking at another time, later, about this, and they feed the uncertainty.
In Junts there are those who imply that there is a correlation between the recognition of the PP that explored the possibility of pardoning the former Catalan president and even that amnesty was studied “for 24 hours” and the letter of on Thursday of the ex-president, in which he said that “everything will be known” regarding the contacts he had with the popular people before the investiture of Pedro Sánchez.
In any case, Rius did want to make it clear that his training is not part of any bloc in Spanish politics, neither that of the central government, nor that of the opposition. He also assured that they have “their own agenda in Madrid” and that they negotiate based on their interests, asking everyone the same, and not the block logic on which politics in Madrid has pivoted in recent years.
ERC, for its part, is not satisfied with the silence of the post-convergents. Shortly before Rius appeared, his spokeswoman, Raquel Sans, asked Junts to clarify his conversations with the PP and whether they talked about amnesty or possible pardons for Catalan independence activists. The deputy asked if the talks with the PP “are looking for future alliances, if it is a smoke screen, or if it is another way to torpedo the Amnesty law”.
In addition, Sans revealed that the PP also contacted his party and asserted that ERC refused to start talks with those of Feijóo.
The popular leadership addressed this whole issue on Friday in an informal meeting with journalists, barely a day after Puigdemont’s letter. After a first phase of denial and downgrading of these talks, under the premise that talking is not negotiating, all parties now admit the meetings. On Friday itself, from Barcelona, ??Elías Bendodo, deputy secretary of autonomous and municipal politics of Génova, also spoke about the contacts with Junts.
In the letter, the ex-Catalan president and de facto leader of Junts assured that if they had voted for the PP or not, Sánchez would have invested the investigations of the National Court, of magistrate Manuel García-Castellón, for the Democratic Tsunami protests, and of the judge Joaquín Aguirre in court number 1 in Barcelona, ??on the alleged Russian plot in the process, they would not be on the way now. “If we had made Feijóo president, all this would not have happened”, assured Puigdemont, who spoke in these terms after the PP included his name and independence in a resolution of the Eurochamber for contacts with the Russians in 2017 .
