Sánchez "normalizes" Junqueras before breaking another barrier with Junts and Bildu
Every step or decision has consequences. Nothing is coincidental and everything is measured. One of the main concerns of the Government in the negotiation that it has had for a long time with ERC and Junts is that the “fight” between both parties implodes the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. They seek to balance the scales and this is where the telephone conversation this Wednesday between the socialist candidate and Oriol Junqueras is framed, a key step, the “normalization” of relations in the prelude to Sánchez taking part in another unusual step: sitting down with EHBildu and Junts.
Until now, a conversation between Sánchez and Junqueras had never transpired, beyond the greeting they exchanged in Congress in 2019 when the ERC leader approached the socialist's seat.. Four years without a direct relationship, at least that is publicly known.
Government sources explain that it is a “good sign” that the relationship has been “normalized at that level”. Sánchez initially defended the Supreme Court ruling that condemned Junqueras, among others, but later promoted the pardons. What happened on Wednesday is one more step, another in the sequence carried out by the acting President of the Government, which rehabilitates the ERC leader as a valid interlocutor. Does that mean that Sánchez will speak with Otegi and Puigdemont? Neither Ferraz nor Moncloa confirm or deny. It is true that Puigdemont does not hold an organic position in Junts, while Junqueras does in ERC.
The truth is that the socialists work in a balance in the face of the fear that the negotiation is going through that the excessive prominence or weight given to Junts will irritate the Republicans, stable partners of PSOE governance in recent years.. “ERC may be bothered that the focus is on Junts,” socialist sources warned this newspaper a few weeks ago.. What Sánchez intends to convey is that “everyone is in the same conditions”, and that if there is a milestone with Junts for being the first meeting, there is also one with ERC, with the first known telephone conversation with Junqueras. Because the leader of the PSOE had already sat down with ERC: Gabriel Rufián went to La Moncloa back in September 2020.
“The conversation with Junqueras has gone well,” reported government sources.. The quote served to show that Sánchez himself takes the helm to try to save not only his inauguration, but as this newspaper reported, to ensure a lasting Government that does not fall at the first opportunity.. Hence the Budgets are in the equation of the negotiations. A Public Accounts for 2024 guarantee the socialists a minimum of two years in power, if not more. That is why Sánchez conveyed to Junqueras “the need to reach an agreement on progress and stability.”
Vote by vote
However, the response that Rufián gave publicly to that request, after meeting with Sánchez in Congress, means pouring cold water on that claim.. «ERC negotiates for the investiture, not for the legislature. “Whoever believes that the legislature can reach an agreement with ERC does not know our way of working,” the spokesperson warned.. The message was clear about it. “ERC votes are sweated,” and they will be sweated “game by game,” he said, paraphrasing Simeone.. At the political level, this means vote by vote.. Week by week. And that also means having the ability to squeeze and condition each text that the Government wants to approve in Congress.
The recovery of contact between the leaders of the PSOE and ERC is valued very positively by the Republicans for being “normal, good and healthy”. “The abnormal thing,” said Rufián, “is what happened before.”. This formation is not afraid that a similar call could also be made to Puigdemont, before Sánchez is seen this Thursday with Miriam Nogueras in Congress, although it is something that the president can get around with the excuse that he does not have an organic position in Junts.. “I don't know,” the socialist spokesperson, Patxi López, said of that hypothesis.
For now, the round is being more of a staging for public opinion than anything else -as the parties themselves recognize-, because the negotiation takes place through other, more discreet channels, where real progress is being made.. That is why Sánchez was not surprised by the three big requests that ERC sent him again, since they have been in contact with the PSOE “since the election night.”
At a press conference after the meeting, Rufián once again presented the “demanding but reasonable” conditions that his party makes to unblock the investiture of the leader of the PSOE.. There are three: amnesty, “voting on the resolution of the conflict” (referendum) and more material issues such as addressing the Catalan “deficit” and the improvement of Cercanías trains (Rodalíes).
«The three folders are equally important. “Whoever believes that we are going to close this with progress in one is wrong,” Rufián stressed, making it clear that only achieving amnesty would not be enough for them, because there must be “ballot boxes.”. Thus, he continued, “voting is as important as taking a decent train.”
Although Rufián highlighted that ERC has already extracted from the Government the commitment that the dialogue table between governments culminates with some democratic endorsement of what comes out there, he did express that the ERC proposal is none other than voting for self-determination. Thus, he ventured that it is “quite likely” that talk of a referendum will cease to be a “chimera” in the near future.
In any case, the Republican spokesman claimed that it is time for “discretion.” To “talk little and negotiate more”, and with this he excused himself from telling any minimal details of the amnesty that is being prepared.