The scepticism to leadership. Junts per Catalunya loaded from the first minute against the dialogue table agreed between the PSOE and ERC, but now the ‘president’ Quim Torra defends not only encabezarla but also wants to impose his criteria. The spokesman of the Government, Meritxell Budo, explained yesterday that the Torra “close details” of that forum bilateral meeting that he expects to keep with Pedro Sanchez in the next few days. The Generalitat shall call the CUP, the ANC and Omnium for designing a proposal that will lead to the dialogue table.
“The wish is that this negotiation between Governments can begin to take place when agreed by the presidents Sánchez and Torra in the meeting that they foresee occurring in the next few days,” he said yesterday Budo in the press conference after the weekly meeting of the Executive of the Catalan language. The also advisor of the Presidency indicated that the advisers of both leaders are trying to schedule the meeting for the next few days. The Moncloa confirmed that today will speak by phone to address this meeting.
The Catalan government insisted that it is a meeting that goes beyond the protocol of greetings on the occasion of the investiture of Sanchez. Before Christmas, both leaders spoke on the phone —Sanchez made a round of calls to all the autonomic presidents— and agreed to look after the investiture. It was a gesture that he pulled out of the freezer the relationship between Sanchez and Torra, chilled by the management of the response to the judgment of the trial by the procés.
That enthusiasm on the part of the Round on the table of dialogue contrasts with the coldness starting with the Junts per Catalunya received, just before the end of the year, the news of the pact PSOE – ERC to change the abstention of the republicans in the endowment of Sanchez. After closing the agreement, the spokesperson for Esquerra, Marta Vilalta, explained that the roundtable was an “instrument”, agreed upon by a party, but “at the service of the country” and said that the bet of the republicans was that Torra lead the Catalan delegation in the negotiations.
Those arguments in a first moment have not convinced the members of the Government. The response of the Round and mp Junts per Catalunya in Madrid, Laura Borràs, was blunt: they did not feel that the agreement signed by the republicans will push you to nothing. Now the president wants the meeting — ”as soon as possible”, he asked Budo—and in addition does not rule out influence the conditions in which they perform the dialogue.
The speaker
For example, Junts per Catalunya had always insisted that it was necessary the presence of a rapporteur in the negotiation table, an external party that certifies the agreements that you could come. In the text signed by the republicans and the socialists do not see this figure. Budo did not rule out yesterday that Torra required by. “It is an option that we don’t stop to contemplate,” he said. Borràs and the president also called in his day because the ex-president Carles Puigdemont, and the political prisoners also were accepted as valid interlocutors.
The Government, in fact, not be compromised with the time limit fixed by the agreement about when you should get up the table: 15 days after the conformation of the Executive of the socialist leader. Budo explained that will the two presidents to determine the start date of the meetings. The decision of the president of the Government of postponing the announcement of his cabinet of ministers allows you to fluff up the calendar for the meeting Sanchez Torra.
That is not the only appointment that fit into the calendar. Torra also began this week contacts for a large meeting with all the actors of the pro-independence” —which had initially proposed Puigdemont— face to establish a common position of the secesionismo face to the table of dialogue. Budo explained that in addition to the two formations that give support to the Government will also be invited to the CUP —completely contrary to the agreement ERC-PSOE— and the Assemblea Nacional Catalana and Omnium Culture.
The spokesman of the Government explained that they will be produced by the proposed “contents, conditions and guarantees,” to go to talk with the Government delegation. That unit, defended Budo, “it would facilitate and give a lot of strength to the Government, which is headed by Quim Torra, to face negotiations with the State.” The vice-president Pere Aragonès had already shown its willingness to work a joint proposal between all the independence.
The Executive Catalan, input, did not reveal what proposals will lead to the summit, independence but Budo explained that will make yours the one that is decided in the summit of independence. Both Torra as Aragonès always have drawn three main lines: the right to self-determination, the amnesty and the respect for political freedoms.
The sensitivities about the future of the table are to flower of skin. Both Barcelona and Madrid are aware that the PP, Citizens, and the Vox are looked upon with the utmost care every step of the way. The alarms were turned on yesterday in Esquerra when the vice-president in functions of the Government, Carmen Calvo, were placed on a par in an interview in The Breakfast of TVE the negotiating table with Governments, the Bilateral Commission. Vice-president, he subsequently Calvo was referring to the concept of a bilateral relationship between Governments.
Aragonès ask to withdraw the court cases
The vice-president Pere Aragonès said yesterday that it will raise in the future table of dialogue on Catalonia that the Government withdraw from the court cases against the pro-independence. “It will be one of the things that we put on the table, the end of repression. And passes, among other things, this [the removal of these causes],” he said in an interview to Catalunya Radio . Beyond the amnesty to the leaders of the procés in prison for a crime of sedition, and malfeasance, both from CKD, such as from Junts per Catalunya have always asked the Government to abandon, for example, appeals against the president of the Parliament and the officers of that body; the investigations of the court 13 of Barcelona (on the organization of the 1-Or); or the cause of the National court against the exmajor of the Catalan, Josep Lluís Trapero. The petition received a response from the PSOE. “They have the freedom to have their opinions, but it is not what we agreed”, said deputy Jose Zaragoza.
