One of the keys to the new legislature that has just started is the good harmony that Junts and PNV maintain. The two parties, which have twelve deputies, have reestablished relations after years of coldness. What happened on 1-O in Catalonia represented a break in the bond that the two parties historically had, which has taken almost six years to rebuild. The thaw began last April, before the municipal and general elections, when the first approach movements occurred. The president of the PNV, Andoni Ortuzar, organized a meeting with the Secretary of Organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, and the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull so that they could get to know each other.
The post-convergents had good references from Cerdán, who in the previous legislature had negotiated with Bildu to bring ETA prisoners closer to Basque prisons and had complied. This was the first meeting that PNV and Junts held to “begin the thaw of relations.” Then came others such as Ortuzar’s visit to Carles Puigdemont in Waterloo or the meeting that the two groups held a few weeks ago in Bilbao to seal a long-term commitment.
The strategic turn that Carles Puigdemont has given to the direction of Junts since 23-J has favored this good harmony between the two parties. The jeltzales and posconvergents maintain a similar situation in the Basque Country and Catalonia where they compete with left-wing parties that are also allies of Pedro Sánchez. Since the Basque elections appear on the horizon, which could be held between March and June next year, and the Catalan elections, scheduled for early 2025. An electoral calendar that further fuels this tough competition for nationalist space.
This association seeks to balance the economic policies of a left-wing and progressive coalition government, while forcing the socialists to comply with the agreements agreed upon for Sánchez’s investiture. The two parties want to avoid seeing themselves outside the political board and the first of the decisions adopted by Ortuzar and Turull will be to agree on the amendments to the omnibus decree that Sánchez’s Executive wants to approve before the end of the year. Both parties want to agree one by one on the proposed economic initiatives. They do not want to enter into a wholesale pact that they would find difficult to explain to their electorate.
But this alliance that will probably take place in the coming days has a much broader perimeter. The two parties have conspired to make joint decisions beyond this omnibus decree. To act as a clamp in the economic field against the policies of the Sánchez Government, at the same time that they counterattack the well-oiled axis of ERC and Bildu. In the future it would not be ruled out that they end up voting with the PP.
