ERC seeks a coup d'état in the negotiations with Sánchez to stop Puigdemont's prominence

The exchange of blows that Junts and Esquerra carried out yesterday, during the General Policy Debate in the Parliament, was a new staging of the struggle between both parties for the management of the negotiations with the PSOE for an eventual investiture of Pedro Sánchez.

The Republicans believe that JxCat's reproaches for their strategy during the last four years, at the bilateral dialogue table with the Government, are nothing more than turning the tables and that, strictly speaking, the post-convergents have assumed that the towards independence involves achieving the holding of a referendum previously agreed upon with the State. Of course, ERC observes with concern the renewed influence that the 23-J result has given Carles Puigdemont.

Relegated to the background since the same election night, Esquerra is trying to “fine-tune the strategy” so as not to lose more visibility and prevent Junts from taking over the political benefits of the PSOE concessions if the talks come to fruition, sources from the party explain. game. For this reason, in recent days, the most repeated message from the Republican ranks has been that the amnesty has already been agreed with the socialists since the month of August, with the agreement for the composition of the Congressional Board, and that this measure of Grace is a new step on the path that they began to clear.

ERC intends for the decision of the two pro-independence forces on Sánchez's investiture to be joint, for fear of later appearing to be singled out as lukewarm negotiators in the face of the purity of their rivals.. “We are condemned to understand each other,” implored the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, after the recent Diada, in which Puigdemont's leadership once again emerged strengthened from the traditional demonstration organized by the ANC..

The Republicans consider that, if just a year ago Junts demanded agreeing on a unitary strategy in Madrid as one of its three conditions in order not to force the breakup of the Government, it is now that the ideal circumstances arise for the two parties that compete for hegemony of Catalan nationalism go hand in hand. Both because of the current correlation of forces, with seven deputies in each parliamentary group (previously there were 13 compared to eight), and because of the purpose, which is none other than to force Sánchez to move again after the granting of pardons to the convicted independence leaders. by the Supreme Court and the reform of the Penal Code that repealed the crime of sedition and modified the crime of embezzlement.

Oriol Junqueras

For now, the post-convergents have not shown signs of agreeing to share their rising prominence. Thus, with the regional elections less than a year and a half away and after the notable loss of votes in the last general and municipal elections (412,000 and 300,000), ERC is oiling its engine room for the decisive phase of the negotiations for the investiture. And a good part of his strategy involves breaking Puigdemont's preponderance since 23-J, which skyrocketed even more, at the beginning of this month, with the conference he offered in Brussels to outline his conditions for Sánchez and the visit he received from the second vice president of the acting Government, Yolanda Díaz. A few days after that photograph, Aragonès was quick to say that he had also held conversations with the leader of Sumar. With the same purpose, last week it was the president of the Republicans, Oriol Junqueras, who fought to be on the front line with two public appearances, one of them at the doors of the Congress of Deputies, to take the agreement on the law for granted. of amnesty.

The first analyzes with the new parliamentary arithmetic placed Esquerra on the night of July 23rd in the block of support that Sánchez could most likely gain and focused all eyes on Junts. If, in 2019, they were the coveted piece that forced the PSOE to sweat to achieve their abstention in the investiture, four years later the Republicans are struggling not to remain unfocused. In this way, economic demands are the other point in which ERC wants to impose its story. In the electoral campaign, the candidacy led by Gabriel Rufián vigorously demanded the reversal of the “fiscal deficit”. A few days ago, the Republicans pressed the accelerator to denounce “the grievance suffered by Catalonia” (they quantify it at 22,000 million euros in 2021) and put on the table the convenience of proposing their own tax regime similar to the Basque and Navarrese ones. .

The prominence of JxCat from the first post-election stages is also observed with concern by the PSC, which fears a progressive radicalization of ERC and a distancing that will make bridges of understanding difficult both in the Parliament, where yesterday the first secretary of the Catalan socialists, Salvador Illa, extended his hand to Aragonès regarding the budgets of the Generalitat next year, as in Congress, since the variable geometry that Sánchez practiced in some votes with the support of the Ciudadanos deputies will no longer be able to be repeated. Now, the block that supports his hypothetical investiture would have to be the one that supports his initiatives in the Cortes Generales.. “Esquerra is a traditionally very unstable party,” point out sources from the PSC, who in turn admit that this concern is not shared by La Moncloa, where they welcome the restitution of the post-convergents as a force with which to reach agreements during the legislature.