There has been no narrative turn about the horn. The Junts per Catalunya group has ratified from the lectern of the Senate, where the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies met this Wednesday, that it will not support the decrees of the central Government that will have to approve them again in an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers and bring them back to Parliament so that the measures announced in December are maintained.
In the last few hours there have been negotiations and contacts between PSOE and JxCat, but they have not come to fruition despite the rapprochement of positions and the group led by Miriam Nogueras will not support the validation of the decrees, so they will fall. Thus, only 166 votes in favor and 172 against are guaranteed for measures on which, among others, the disbursement of another 10 billion euros from European funds, the revaluation of contributory pensions at 3.8%, the free public transport for young people or a reduction in VAT for basic foods.
The general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, was in Madrid yesterday and that night he met with the socialists along with Nogueras, but those conversations did not unblock the situation and this Wednesday morning he returned to Barcelona, ??according to party sources. “Yesterday we negotiated until very late, but it has to be before the approval of the decrees [the negotiation]. It was a mistake to do it later,” Nogueras pointed out in this regard.
“Make the royal decree of social measures without traps and agreeing with Junts beforehand and you will have the vote of Junts,” said Nogueras in his speech, in which he accused the central Executive of “irresponsibility” for approving the initiatives without having negotiated. in advance the necessary support to reach the majority.
“We all agree that they have not done it well and when they started to do it well it was already too late. A critical situation had to be reached for them to understand that when we said that we would not give votes in exchange for nothing it means that we would not “we would give them in exchange for nothing,” stated the deputy, who also stressed that the pressure they now receive in their training “should be there before approving the decrees in the Council of Ministers.”
In her speech, the Junts deputy recalled that the agreement for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez stated that “the stability of the legislature is subject to the progress and compliance of the negotiation.” “We did not come with compromised stability and we began this adventure knowing the risks,” she added. “They have time to rectify it, make the royal decree without tricks and the social measures will be approved,” she insisted.
Within JxCat there are those who welcome sending a notice to the PSOE, both in terms of the form and substance of the decrees, to make clear what their way of proceeding will be during the legislatures, despite the unpopularity that it may arouse. not supporting a decree that contained the increase in pensions and other social measures. Something like adopting a starting position of strength.
In defending the rejection of the Government’s initiatives, Nogueras has once again put his demands on the table: that there be more resources for Catalonia in relation to the digitalization of justice, that oil be included as a basic necessity product or that the central Executive assumes the cost of free public transport in full. Likewise, it has demanded that the Capital Companies Law be modified in articles 8 and 9 to guarantee “that the law is complied with when it says that the corporate headquarters must be where the main activity or management centers are” and that There are “tax incentives for those who comply with the law”, as a tool for companies to return, leaving aside the sanctions that JxCat had requested for those who do not comply.
Thus, the Government’s plan B, in this scenario, is to re-present the precepts separated by themes to guarantee the approval of the social measures by the post-convergents and the rest of the groups.
Podemos, before Nogueras, has also announced its rejection of the measures, in its case considering the extension of the social shield insufficient, as pointed out by Lilith Verstrynge, who has requested modifications to the wording of the royal decree.
The criticism of the purples, however, is not the same as that expressed by the peripheral groups, Junts, PNV, Esquerra and EH Bildu, which have censored the use of the royal decree as an instrument to legislate several matters in a single text in one go. and at the same time link social measures with legal modifications related to the field of justice or public service. However, Abertzales, Jeltzales and Republicans will vote in favor of validation, unlike the post-convergents.
In his presentation, the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños, had previously brandished the package of social measures that include the Executive’s initiatives to appeal to the groups that oppose its validation and try to mobilize some vote, without success. In an intervention aimed, above all, at the story more than at convincing those who reject validation.
The first reaction of the second vice president of the Government to the position made official by Nogueras has been to complain about the difficulties to which this party, and Podemos, are subjecting the Government: “It is very difficult to govern like this,” she noted in the corridors of the Senate, although he has said he “understands” the contrary position of the post-convergents: “It is part of parliamentary logic.”
Yolanda Díaz has acknowledged having spoken about the decrees with the leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont. “Not today,” she clarified in statements to La Sexta. “It is one thing for political parties to demand that we negotiate, and this must be the case” (…) “But rushing when the interests of citizens are at stake is very complicated,” she added.
If the Government’s defeat in the telematic vote is confirmed, Sumar sources do not rule out that the Executive will once again present the anti-crisis decrees in an extraordinary Council of Ministers – possibly this week – given Díaz’s determination to “improve the lives of the most vulnerable”. “The general interest is above any other reason,” they insist from the confederal space.
