PSOE and Junts face a clandestine meeting in Switzerland with lower expectations

The PSOE and JxCAT travel to Geneva (Switzerland) with low expectations for their first meeting, which El Confidencial reported this week, under the mantle of a team of international verifiers specialized in mediating conflicts, according to political sources familiar with the events. contacts between both formations. The obsession of the participants is the secret and there are no photos or images of the appointment. A condition that is also imposed by the team of mediators.

Carles Puigdemont, whom JxCAT always said would participate in the negotiations, has published a post on Instagram that does not predict a good result for this first meeting.. At least in theory. The former president talks about the weakness of Spain and an attempted coup d'état by the judges, whom he compares to General Pavía. Doesn't seem like the best prologue to a fruitful meeting.. Puigdemont travels to Geneva. He will be accompanied by the spokesperson for JxCAT in Congress, Míriam Nogueras and the general secretary of the party, Jordi Turull. On the socialist side there will be the secretary of organization of the formation, Santos Cerdán, who has assumed the dialogue.

The Henry Durant center neither confirms nor denies that it is part of the verification team for this meeting, as has been published in various media. JxCAT does not comment on the matter and the PSOE denies it and explains that “it is not closed”. At the end of this Friday, the two parties had not agreed on how they will communicate this first meeting after the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez or if they will explain anything, another sign that no great results are expected..

To preserve secrecy, the verifier has imposed a strict protocol, so that participants will only know where they are to meet at the last minute. It must be understood that this methodology is the usual one for armed conflicts. But nothing could be further from the real situation in Catalonia, where the majority of citizens have completely disconnected and are neither against nor in favor of the amnesty.. The two parties announced with great fanfare that they were going to meet outside of Spain when they signed the investiture agreement, but they have not given many more details.. Although this opacity is beginning to weigh on the socialists, since, no matter how much they insist on conveying that it is an appointment between parties, Ferraz is inseparable from the Government..

Wrong tool

PSOE and Junts agreed to “equip themselves with an international mechanism between both organizations that has the functions of accompanying, verifying and monitoring the entire negotiation process and the agreements reached between both formations”. Also with a “mechanism for support, verification and monitoring that has been provided, which will develop the negotiation between the parties. In that space, disagreements will be negotiated, agreed upon, and addressed, as well as any dysfunctions that arise in the development of the agreements,” as the pact literally announced..

JxCAT needed to air that it had achieved more than just the amnesty. But that put all the focus on a negotiation that Puigdemont's party always placed at a higher level than the dialogue table promoted by Pere Aragonès and Pedro Sánchez..

But announcing the existence of the negotiations is not consistent with the anonymity required by a verifier or a team of mediators.. The reality is that little can be agreed in Geneva, except for issues that have to do with the methodology or the meeting schedule.. In fact, socialist sources assure that the first meetings will be dedicated exclusively to that.. But for JxCAT, the objective is not to end the conflict, but to prolong it, because it is not an armed clash, but rather a political crisis that they also have to exploit in the face of the Generalitat elections, scheduled for February 2025. if Aragonès does not advance them.

Starting in 2025, it is likely that JxCAT and ERC, in their fierce battle for independence hegemony, will seek to distance themselves from the PSOE and destabilize the Government as a calling card to their voters.. As the Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, already said, “when there are agreements they will be explained”. The fact that nothing is going to be detailed tomorrow is that neither party anticipates that agreements of any kind will be closed.. Moncloa does not hide in private that its purpose is to extend the negotiation as much as possible..

The figure of the spokesperson

The forecast is that soon, even this weekend, the name of the spokesperson who will explain how the conversations are evolving will be made public.. It will be the only novelty that will occur when everything has passed. In any case, there are doubts that the issues that were indicated in the investiture pact document can be negotiated at a table like this, as is the case of “a modification of the LOFCA [Financing of the Autonomous Communities] that establishes a clause of exception of Catalonia that recognizes the uniqueness in which the institutional system of the Generalitat is organized and that facilitates the transfer of 100% of all taxes paid in Catalonia”.

An issue of this significance goes through the Parliament and the Congress and also needs the Generalitat. A table between two parties does not seem like the ideal forum for something like this, no matter how much secret international verification is used to mediate the conversations..