ERC and Junts have agreed that they will not invest Pedro Sánchez if the socialist candidate does not first commit to negotiating an independence referendum in addition to approving an amnesty law to annul the judicial processes of the process.
The parties led by Oriol Junqueras and Carles Puigdemont have just registered joint resolutions in the Parliament, in what represents their first agreement to establish common conditions for the re-election of the acting president.
“The Parliament is in favor of the Catalan political forces represented in the Spanish Cortes not supporting an investiture of a future Spanish Government that does not commit to working to make effective the conditions for holding a referendum,” it reads. the proposal that the Republicans and the post-convergents subscribe to.
In another joint resolution, ERC and Junts defend “the need for an amnesty law to nullify what had been classified as a criminal or administrative offense in relation to the defense of the exercise of the right to self-determination of Catalonia.”
Until now, Junqueras and Puigdemont had been unable to outline a shared roadmap to address Sánchez's investiture, so this first alliance transcends the value of two simple parliamentary motions and points to the possibility that ERC and Junts end up agreeing the price of Sánchez's re-election, although new differences and parallel conversations with the PSOE should not be ruled out.
Both resolutions will be put to the vote this Friday on the last day of the Parliament's General Policy Debate.. The amnesty motion will be approved, as it has also been drafted by the CUP, which guarantees a majority for the secessionist forces; but the one referring to a new referendum does not have the support of the anti-system, so it will be necessary for the radicals or the commoners to abstain for it to see the light, since the PSC has already announced that it will not support any initiative related to the amnesty or the referendum to not be significant in the Catalan Chamber.
What's more, the PSC and the PSOE showed in a joint statement their rejection of the demand to take steps towards a referendum. Pedro Sánchez's roadmap is based on “dialogue to overcome the division and not to deepen the rupture and discord”. And there is a formula about amnesty, but not a consultation: “There is no possible progress along that path.”. “The path is that of coexistence and cohesion, understanding and the economic and social progress of Catalonia and the rest of Spain, always within the Constitution.”