The negotiators of the PSOE and Junts meet for the first time this Saturday in the negotiation space that they agreed upon in the investiture pact. The conversations between the actors of both forces, who are the same ones that worked in recent months on the agreement that allowed the re-election of Pedro Sánchez, will have the support and accompaniment of the Henry Dunant foundation, located in Geneva (Switzerland). The organization, which has Javier Solana as honorary president, mediated in the negotiations for the end of ETA.
At that forum will be the organization secretary of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán – who suspended the event he had planned to hold last night in Alicante – and his deputy in Ferraz, Juan Francisco Serrano. On behalf of JxCat, the presence of former president Carles Puigdemont is expected; the secretary general, Jordi Turull, and the spokesperson in Congress, Míriam Nogueras. Both Nogueras and Cerdán were captured yesterday by the press upon arriving in the Swiss city, at the airport. In addition, the Junts leader has been rebuked by some citizens who crossed paths with her.
This is the core of leaders who sealed the pact for the investiture, in which they already had the help of the international verification mechanism, as Turull himself revealed a few days ago.
Both Junts and the PSOE are committed to silence before and after the appointment. “We will be discreet, and we already know that in Junts they are also capable of maintaining discretion,” the socialists highlight. In any case, Cerdán, upon arriving at the airport accompanied by Serrano, assured that on Saturday, after the meeting, “there will be news.” “I can’t say anything as long as there is no meeting,” he said to get the press off his back. “When we have agreements we will inform you,” he concluded. Nogueras, for his part, has not responded to journalists.
The two parties agree that for the talks to be fruitful there must be absolute discretion, as there was in the early stages of the investiture negotiations.
JxCat will propose as a starting point the holding of a referendum through article 92 of the Constitution, as Turull himself (on behalf of CiU), Marta Rovira (ERC) and Joan Herrera (ICV-EUiA) already did in 2014 in the Congress. In addition, they plan to demand another of the measures that the Generalitat – led by Artur Mas – put on the table at the beginning of the process: a financing system that recognizes the uniqueness of Catalonia. Their idea is to demand that Catalonia be excluded from the organic law on Financing of the Autonomous Communities (Lofca) and that the Catalan administration, the Agència Tributària de Catalunya, collect 100% of the taxes.
Sources familiar with the internal dynamics of Junts point out that the party’s intention is to obtain tangible issues in the negotiation before the European elections next spring. To do this, they have prior internal work, and advice even from people outside their organization, but experts in certain subjects, such as economics.
Puigdemont reiterated this week that JxCat will support Sánchez’s coalition government as long as there is “progress in the negotiation.” In this situation, he warned that they do not rule out agreeing with the PP in the votes if necessary.
The PSOE and Junts agreed that there will be monthly meetings, and although the forum had to start before the end of November, for scheduling reasons it starts at the beginning of December.
The meeting precedes the one that Sánchez will hold with President Pere Aragonès on December 21 at the Palau de la Generalitat. In the PSOE, as in the investiture negotiations, they have to balance between two forces that compete in the Catalan arena, JxCat and ERC. Also in that competition are now the returns that they can obtain from the negotiation after the turn of the post-convergents after the 23-J elections.
