Esquerra Republicana has guaranteed the support of its seven deputies to the PSOE in the vote next Thursday to constitute the Presidency and the Table of the Congress of Deputies. The number two of ERC for Barcelona, ??Teresa Jordà, who has collected her parliamentary minutes today along with three other colleagues, has explained that the priority of the independentistas is that the governing body of the Lower House be “progressive” and that it not it is their priority to have a vice-presidency or a secretariat.
ERC accepts that the PSOE presides over the chamber, waiting for Ferraz’s negotiators to inform them who their candidate will be after the decision that Meritxell Batet not repeat. The Republicans consider that the conversations on the Table are not so much about names, but about policies. “We prefer to side with the supposed state progressivism,” Jordà has indicated.
The ERC spokeswoman has also taken it for granted that the PSOE will guarantee that both the Republicans and Junts can have their own parliamentary group during the next legislature.
Jordà has insisted on the idea that the independence movement has a “golden opportunity” to assert its positions -both in the negotiations for the Table and the investiture, as well as for the coming legislature. ERC and Junts add up to 14 deputies who do not “start from scratch”. “The last four years a lot of work has been done,” recalled Jordá, reaching out to the other pro-independence party with which they intend to form a common front to put the issues that affect Catalonia at the epicenter of politics. “There has to be good sense,” he asked.
When asked if the latest resolution of the Constitutional Court – which yesterday rejected Carles Puigdemont’s amparo appeal for annulment of his national arrest warrant – could be an obstacle in the negotiations to form the Board and the next progressive investiture, Jordà has been blunt: “It wouldn’t have to affect”. This is so because it has framed it in the alleged “general cause” that the State launched in 2017 against the independence movement, although it has branded as “shameful” the fact that the two conservative magistrates who control the Chamber of Holidays from the guarantee court did not even admit to processing -as has been done so far with everything related to the process- to be debated in plenary, where the progressive court has had a majority since last January.
The PSOE has decided to compartmentalize the negotiations of the Table and the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. At this time the Socialists are only negotiating on the important votes to be held next week to elect the governing body of the Lower House and have told their interlocutors that from the 18th they will begin contacts on a possible commission from the King. ERC and the BNG, which has also been in favor of supporting the PSOE in the 17-A vote, have confirmed that the Socialists are not yet negotiating on the possible investiture of Sánchez.
The main interlocutor of the PSOE has been, until now, Rafael Simancas, acting Secretary of State for Relations with the Cortes. The number two of Félix Bolaños has maintained telephone contacts in recent days with potential PSOE partners, although this Thursday he had already scheduled the first face-to-face meetings, the ERC and the BNG have indicated. Bolaños plans to get personally involved in these talks today.
The elected deputy of the BNG, Nestro Rego, who also collected his minutes in Congress today, has indicated that the willingness to support a composition of the Table that reflects “the political plurality of Congress” and that “facilitates the work of all groups”. The Galician has added that he will not enter into who should preside over Congress.
