“Esquerra Republicana does not renounce any democratic way to resolve the political conflict, (but) we evidently prioritize the path of political negotiation.” The formula that the Republican spokesperson Raquel Sans used today to avoid an explicit renunciation of unilateralism is the same one that the president of the party, Oriol Junqueras, used since December 2022. The head of ERC clarified the issue then even a little more and in an interview on RTVE he assured that the unilateral route is also “democratic.”
That Esquerra avoids rejecting unilateralism regains relevance today in the face of negotiations for a hypothetical investiture of Pedro Sánchez as President of the Government. The second vice president of the Spanish Executive, Yolanda Díaz, demanded this Sunday from Carles Puigdemont in an interview in La Vanguardia that he abandon his bet on unilateral means if he wants an amnesty law to be approved.
However, ERC’s position on this path has changed if it is taken into account that Junqueras renounced unilateralism on June 7, 2021, a few days before the Government granted pardons to nine independence leaders. “We know that other avenues are neither viable nor desirable to the extent that they distance us from the objective to be achieved,” said the Republican at that time to repudiate unilateralism and opt for negotiation.
Esquerra’s conditions for Sánchez to repeat the presidency of the Government include the amnesty – which Sans has taken again today “for granted” -, progress in the “resolution of the political conflict” -, and the improvement in the well-being of the Catalan citizenship. The latter translates into an agreement for the comprehensive transfer of Rodalies and ending the fiscal deficit, which today the Minister of Economy, Natàlia Mas, has estimated at 22,000 million euros.
ERC seeks so much not to take false steps in the negotiations that it is even difficult to determine how far the Republicans are willing to support their demands and if any of them end up being a sine qua non condition. Nor is it a matter of making Catalan official in the European Union. Sans has also avoided commenting on the matter this afternoon. “We want Catalan to be spoken in Europe and in Congress,” he has limited himself to pointing out half a dozen times when he has been asked.
In any case, the demand was set by Junts for the formation of the Congress Board and for the socialist Francina Armengol to be named president of the Lower House. ERC, on the other hand, did agree to draft an organic law to make Catalan a fully official language in all State institutions and to use it in the first plenary session in Congress, something that is about to happen this Tuesday. when the modification of Parliament’s regulations is debated. The Republicans also agreed to complete the agreements signed in July of last year within the framework of the dialogue table between governments for the use of the Catalan language in the European Parliament.
