The Canarian Coalition’s proposal for the Basque Nationalist Party to assume the presidency of the Congress of Deputies has raised the tension in the negotiations for the election of the Bureau of Parliament next Thursday, August 17. Negotiations that will be very thick and that may have moments of vertigo in the next 72 hours. The foundations of a very uncertain legislature are at stake, as a result of the unexpected electoral results of July 23.
The proposal of the Canarian nationalist coalition, made known yesterday by its general secretary, Fernando Clavijo Batlle, in an interview with La Vanguardia, introduces an unprecedented variable that does not please the Socialist Party and its allies in Sumar. Socialist sources communicated it discreetly yesterday and Yolanda Díaz, acting second vice-president, made it known publicly at an event in Galicia. Diaz said that the “progressive majority” should be clear on Thursday. The left wants to have control of the Congress Bureau in the face of the unappealable absolute majority of the Popular Party in the Senate. The governance of the rhythms and parliamentary procedures will be fundamental in the next legislature, if it succeeds in raising the flight.
To maintain control of political time in the Congress of Deputies, the left will have to obtain the support of almost all its possible parliamentary allies next Thursday, a task that at the moment exceeds the compositional demands of a Byzantine mosaic in the cathedral of Ravenna
If Junts abstains or votes against the proposal of the left for the Table, the only seat of Coalició Canària becomes essential, as long as Esquerra Republicana, Bildu, the Bloc Nacionalista Gallec and the PNB support the division. The latest news is that ERC is getting nervous. On Friday they almost took for granted the support for a socialist presidency of the Congress. Yesterday they put three weighty conditions on it: the introduction of the Catalan language in the Courts, the creation of a commission of inquiry into the Pegasus case (alleged spying on politicians and pro-independence activists), plus a first sketch of a future amnesty law, as reported by Isabel Garcia Pagan today in this newspaper. Until now, the PSOE negotiators, led by the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, have been working with the premise that the conditions for the investiture would be detached from the negotiations of the Bureau. First, ensure the control of political time in Congress and then the negotiation of the conditions for a new investiture of Pedro Sánchez.
ERC fears being left out of the game in the face of the prominence Junts per Catalunya is achieving as the unexpected king maker of Spanish politics. They fear being victims of the return of the Count of Monte Cristo. There is less than a month left until the celebration of the Eleventh of September, the annual catalyst for the feelings, perceptions and moods of nationalist Catalonia. Click, click, click. The sound of the 155 silver coins falling on the pavement still echoes at night in the Saló de Sant Jordi in the Palau de la Generalitat, currently under construction. Nobody wants to be seen as a traitor in Catalonia when the night of the torches approaches at Fossar de les Moreres, the place where many defenders of the city of Barcelona were buried during the Bourbon siege of 1714. ERC yesterday threatened to vote against of the proposal of the left for the Table of the Congress if their demands are not conveniently accommodated. This was not Bolaños’ plan.
Almost all the possible parliamentary allies of the PSOE-Sumar binomial are restless today. Coalició Canària has launched the PNB proposal to show that the arithmetic has changed and that the XV legislature – if it takes root – will not be a simple continuation of the previous one. The moderate nationalist pole vindicates itself against the Bildu-ERC-BNG alliance, the left-wing sovereignty with which Podemos has maintained excellent relations in recent years. Not Add. Yolanda Díaz does not move in this coordinate.
Coalició Canària proposes that the PNB preside over the Congress to draw new geometries, and those of Sabin Etxea remain in hermetic silence. Clavijo did not improvise in the interview with this newspaper, on Friday in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. When he was asked if he had previously informed the management of the PNB, the president of the Government of the Canary Islands replied that his contacts with the Basque nationalists are constant. The two formations have maintained a close relationship for years, despite the geographical distance and the obvious differences in social model between Euskadi and the Canary Islands. They have in common specific tax regimes, a strong desire for uniqueness on the regional map and an aversion to leftism, a trait most pronounced in Coalició Canària.
Sepulchral silence in Sabin Etexea, headquarters of the PNB in ??Bilbao. Yesterday was Sunday and the Jesuits have held school in the Basque Country. They know how to keep quiet. They did not reject the proposal of their friend Clavijo, nor did they devote themselves to glossing over it. They keep quiet and wait.
The Popular Party took note of the Canarian movement. The PP is in constant contact with PNB leaders and has sent some Morse code messages to Waterloo. The next 72 hours will be very intense.
