Amnesty, yes, but there has to be something more: progress in self-determination. It is the maximum that ERC has maintained since July. Republicans take the law of criminal oblivion for granted. “The amnesty is a fact,” said Pere Aragonès yesterday without going any further and within the framework of the negotiation for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. In Esquerra’s opinion, the second folder remains to be addressed. With this objective, the president of the ERC parliamentary group and president of the party’s national council, Josep Maria Jové, met today in Barcelona with the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños. An appointment in which, as La Vanguardia has learned, the next issue, that of a referendum, has been raised by ERC despite the misgivings of the PSOE. However, in statements to this newspaper, socialist sources assure that “in no case is self-determination on the PSOE agenda” in these negotiations.
In fact, they cling to the document that the PSOE and ERC forged in 2019 and signed in 2020 for the creation of the dialogue table and in which the words self-determination or independence are not made explicit. “The measures in which the agreements are materialized will be subject, where appropriate, to democratic validation through consultation with the citizens of Catalonia,” the text reads.
It is a framework that Marta Rovira, general secretary of ERC, contemplates in a certain way. “At least the PSOE would have to assume the same as in 2019,” the leader stated this week, so in this sense both parties could agree.
In any case, Esquerra goes beyond amnesty in the talks. Today Jové wanted to point this out in person before Bolaños in a meeting that El Nacional reported on. The Republicans retain hope of a negotiation for self-determination that they saw as close after yesterday’s statements by Salvador Illa, who positioned himself in favor of recovering the dialogue table between the Generalitat and the Government because in his opinion “it has borne fruit” , without necessarily implying talking about self-determination.
The Bolaños-Jové meeting took place this afternoon after the minister attended the Government delegation in Catalonia. Yolanda Díaz is also in the Catalan capital, but ERC focuses its efforts on dialogue with the socialists.
The older brother is the PSOE. He is the one he wants to deal with Esquerra. The Republicans appreciate Sumar’s attempts to push through an amnesty law that will require fine goldsmithing for Pedro Sánchez to be sworn in and so that if he ends up coming to fruition it will not be overturned by the Constitutional Court. But they do minimize and relegate the role of Yolanda Díaz’s people in the negotiations, to whom they also attribute self-interested media overexposure with the intention of appearing in a center of the negotiation where, according to Esquerra, they are not. For ERC, the visit of the leader of Sumar to Carles Puigdemont and the constant presence of Jaume Asens in the media would be proof of this desire.
Oriol Junqueras’s men informed Sumar weeks ago of their intention to negotiate with the PSOE. This morning they met with the minister in Barcelona. It is for this reason that Jaume Asens has informed Junts of his training’s proposal on the amnesty, and not ERC. The opinion of the group of experts appointed by Díaz has been delivered to the former minister and MEP for JxCat, Toni Comín, interlocutor with Sumar in the talks for the negotiation of the investiture. “Junts thanks Sumar for its involvement and interest in the desire to reach an agreement and undertakes to carry out a detailed analysis and convey its conclusions on this bill as immediately as possible,” the post-convergents have limited themselves to pointing out.
Even so, Esquerra, with Junts, has known the details of Sumar’s initiative for a long time. In fact, it is very similar to the one registered by ERC, JxCat and the CUP in Congress in March 2021. That proposal, prepared by the Amnistia i Llibertat platform, and led by the current senator of the Republicans, Joan Queralt, was left in paper lost when the Lower House Table did not admit it.
