Carles Puigdemont plans to reveal over the next week whether he agrees to be the Junts per Catalunya candidate for the Catalan elections on May 12. Internally, at JxCat there is little doubt that the former president will be the headliner and the commitment to give all the relevance to Puigdemont is total. To get it fully into the pre-campaign, the party has chosen this time to publicize one of the meetings that the Junts negotiating team, with Puigdemont at the head, holds periodically with the PSOE in Switzerland. This Friday was the fourth meeting of this type to be held under the supervision of an international mediator, the Salvadoran diplomat Francisco Galindo Vélez.
Silence and discretion were always the maximum in previous times, but Junts now exhibits its leader’s interview with the PSOE emissary, Santos Cerdán, as an example of the ability to deal face to face with the Government. A strategy that serves to vindicate the figure of Puigdemont and to distance itself from Esquerra Republicana, whom Junts has always accused of negotiating inability and of bowing to the mandate of Pedro Sánchez without achieving anything in return.
“There are some who don’t even know when they are going to meet, while we meet, move forward and work. The issues that are on the table are the self-determination referendum, the reform of the financing system, and we have added language and immigration,” Laura Borràs, president of JxCat, detailed this Saturday. Once the amnesty law was approved, “agreements continue to be negotiated,” they say in Junts. The argument of Puigdemont’s party tries to support the theory that to have a smooth legislature, Sánchez will have to make concessions.
On behalf of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, Jordi Turull and Míriam Nogueras always attend the Swiss events. And on the part of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán and his two people he trusts most, Juan Francisco Serrano and Eladio Garzón. This Friday the meeting was in Zurich. At the beginning of December, the first meeting with the international observer was held, which was followed almost live with the press chasing the politicians at the Geneva airport. The two parties then agreed not to report these appointments and to keep them discreet. However, this Saturday Junts issued a statement, the PSOE issued another for its part, which highlighted the implementation of “the work teams in the two large agreed areas.”
Two areas that refer to the “national recognition” of Catalonia, Junts proposes a self-determination referendum that the PSOE rejects, and the “deficits and limitations of self-government”, where Junts demands a fiscal pact that the PSOE does not accept. In addition to these two matters, PSOE and Junts are also holding negotiations on two other folders: the Catalan language and the delegation of powers in immigration.
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Since deciding to support the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, Junts has tried to present in return a series of achievements with the protection and dissemination of Catalan. Despite everything, at the moment what was a priority to support Sánchez’s investiture has not been achieved: the recognition of the use of Catalan in the institutions of the European Union.
The transfer to Catalonia of powers regarding immigration is another thing that Junts displays in its balance sheet of the negotiation with the PSOE. However, Esquerra replies that transfers are closed between governments and accuses Junts of negotiating in front of the gallery. The president of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, advocated this Saturday for a victory for his party in the Catalan elections of May 12 against those who prioritize “his selfishness over the needs” of Catalonia. Junqueras thus fired against Junts and the commons for their no to the budgets of the Generalitat. In the same party event, Pere Aragonès asked voters to give him “more strength” to continue facing “the irresponsibility” of Junts y Comuns and prevent a “Moncloa delegate” from presiding over Catalonia, in reference to the socialist Salvador Illa.
This Saturday the result of the internal consultation called by the ANC was also made public, and where the partners had to validate whether the entity can participate in the Catalan elections, as the management intended. The militancy overthrew the idea of its own list.
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