Sánchez proposes that the dialogue table with the Generalitat start Monday in La Moncloa

The president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has offered to the president of the Generalitat, Quim Torra, that the meeting of the dialogue table between the two Executives takes place next Monday, February 24 in La Moncloa. However, the Presidency of the Generalitat has responded by criticizing Sanchez for making that date public before it is agreed with Torra. However, the Generalitat has been open to both teams agree by mutual agreement another date, wanting to make clear their willingness not to slam the dialogue forum on the political conflict in Catalonia.

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The partners of the Government, Junts per Catalunya and Esquerra Republicana, have been trying for days to close the details of the Catalan proposal, without success. Republicans want the meeting to be before the end of February, as Sanchez proposed in his visit to Barcelona, ​​but the neoconvergents see no problem in postponing it in order to include their demand for a mediator (which the PSOE flatly rejects). Last Tuesday, Catalan spokeswoman Mertixell Budó raised the possibility that the appointment was in March, but the Executive insisted on fulfilling the commitment to make it in February.

The date is important because the result of these first meetings depends on the possibility that the Government will present the Budgets in March, something key for them to be valid in the second half of the year. The rifirrafe between Sánchez and Torra even by the date of the call shows the difficulties that the Government will have to advance at the table and thus consolidate the Budgets and, therefore, the legislature. The horizon of the electoral advance in Catalonia complicates the situation and increases the battle between Junts per Catalunya and ERC.

In a hard statement, which shows the difficulties of this table, the Catalan Government criticizes La Moncloa for announcing the date without having agreed with Torra. The president assures that the Cabinet of Sanchez has not even appointed the technical teams to negotiate the details of the table, which was what the presidents had spoken. Budó had assured yesterday that the Generalitat had not yet designated its technical team but from the Government they have said this Wednesday that it is already appointed.

"This morning the cabinet of President Sánchez has called that of President Torra to tell him that they wanted to announce the date of February 24. To encourage dialogue, they have been explicitly requested to communicate it jointly when the date was agreed and not to do so unilaterally. We regret that Moncloa has announced a date without agreement or taking into account the agenda of President Torra, "says the text. Even so, the last paragraph makes it clear that the table will meet: "The cabinet of President Torra has already transferred to the cabinet of President Sánchez the will to agree on a date fulfilling the commitment of the two presidents."

The presence of a rapporteur continues to be the workhorse of de Junts per Catalunya and Torra so as not to reach an agreement with Esquerra, which will then allow a date for the meeting to be agreed with La Moncloa. This figure, which should give an account of the agreements and the development of the negotiations between the two Governments, does not appear in the agreement that PSOE and ERC agreed, in order to guarantee the abstention of the latter in the investiture of Sánchez. The existence of this figure dynamited the previous attempt of rapprochement between the Government and the Generalitat, as it was considered as a way of giving international conflict status to the Catalan problem.

Junts spokesman in the Parliament, Eduard Pujol, has criticized Moncloa's announcement: "It is a step in which what it does is legitimize and pedagogy the need of the mediator." For Junts, "fixing the date of the meeting unilaterally does not show a great willingness to dialogue." Esquerra sources say that the socialist spokeswoman, Adriana Lastra, polled them on Monday's date and the leader of Republican ranks in Madrid, Gabriel Rufián, showed the availability of their training. Those voices are unaware, however, if the same question was finally asked of Torra's team.

Last Tuesday, Budó had insisted on leaving the table for March. This is a message that clashes directly with what ERC defends, which insists that the table that agreed with the PSOE to unlock Sanchez's investiture begins before the end of the month, as his spokesman, Marta Vilalta, has said, which has asked Junts per Catalunya "not to run aground" the setting up of the negotiating table although there is no agreement with the State to incorporate the figure of a mediator. "We want a mediator, yes. But (and here there may be a difference) from ERC we prioritize the table to start working with guarantees, not to run it up because there is no agreement with the State by the mediator," he stressed on Twitter. The spokesman for ERC in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, has also assured that it is "good news" that the table will meet before the end of February and that, in this way, the agreement is "fulfilled" .