Although Junts has not formally ruled out negotiating with the PP, the former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont will set the conditions for his formation this Tuesday to negotiate an eventual investiture of Pedro Sánchez as president of the Government, in a conference that he will give from Brussels, coinciding with an interparliamentary day of the party, and in which it will foreseeably demand as the first point an amnesty that includes all criminal cases linked to the process. However, other conditions regarding the right to self-determination cannot be ruled out, such as an agreed referendum.
Puigdemont will deliver his conference at 11 in the morning this Tuesday in the European Parliament, practically 24 hours after meeting on the same stage with Yolanda Díaz, second vice president of the acting Government and leader of Sumar, in what was the first meeting between a member of the Spanish government and the pro-independence leader since he established his residence in Belgium in 2017. Both of them, who were accompanied by Toni Comín for Junts and Jaume Asens for Sumar, agreed on Monday to “explore all democratic solutions to unblock the political conflict” in Catalonia, according to a joint statement, which seems to open the door to amnesty.
While Moncloa sources disassociated themselves from the meeting, the chief executive was convinced that the agreement with the independentistas would reach a new legislature that, in his words, “must be the one that definitively leaves behind the fracture that we are experiencing in 2017”. Without mentioning the amnesty and after defending measures such as pardons for the leaders of the procés and the elimination of the crime of sedition or the reform of embezzlement, Pedro Sánchez pointed out at a breakfast in Madrid that “the time has come to be coherent and continue advancing in that purpose for coexistence”. Always without exceeding the constitutional framework, he warned. This is Sánchez’s red line.
Discretion has prevailed in Junts in the face of this conference that comes amid the competition between the post-convergents and Esquerra to capitalize on the negotiation with the PSOE. In this sense, the president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, pointed out this Sunday in an interview with La Vanguardia that amnesty “is not enough” and that “self-determination must be considered.” Junqueras warned that amnesty “is not the end point “, but the necessary condition to dialogue on an equal footing with the State on the Catalan conflict.
Some words that are reminiscent of those that Puigdemont himself left in a long post on the X social network when he announced today’s conference, making a clear distinction between dialogue and negotiation. “Dialogue is prior to any negotiation, it can serve to set the framework in which it can take place, or it can serve to verify that there is no room for negotiation. We will see this in the coming days,” pointed out the former president, who already recognized “talks ” with other formations, but asked not to confuse them with any “negotiation”.
Just yesterday, the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, supported the leader of his party and asked Junts for coordination in the negotiations for the investiture of Sánchez because, in his opinion, “there is the possibility that Catalonia will win a lot and win what deserves” and reiterated Esquerra’s conditions: end the repression with an amnesty, agree on the right to decide for the Catalans and measures that improve the well-being of the people, among which he cited ending the fiscal deficit suffered by Catalonia and the full transfer of Rodalies to put an end to the problems suffered by the service. In any case, the Republicans want to value Puigdemont’s conference and have sent deputies Teresa Jordà and Francesc-Marc Álvaro to Brussels.
But another relevant pro-independence actor joined the debate yesterday on the negotiations on the eve of the Diada. The Catalan National Assembly (ANC) issued a statement in which it demanded that the pro-independence parties, specifically ERC and Junts, agree to achieve independence and “not to vote for presidents of the repressive state”, alluding to Spain , while rejecting any pact with Sánchez if there is no “explicit recognition” of 1-O as an “act of sovereignty that endorses Catalonia as a political subject in conflict with the State.”
