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The dialogue between the Government and the Generalitat starts in an environment of normal gestures

2020-02-26T18:51:30.106Z


The meeting has no agenda and no progress is expected, but it does serve to allow ERC to approve the deficit path this Thursday in Congress


The dialogue table between the Government and the Generalitat, which allowed the investiture of Pedro Sánchez and will mark the legislature, has begun with a clear will to offer, at least in the gestures visible to the cameras, an environment of total normality. Everything was measured and agreed to the millimeter.

MORE INFORMATION

  • Montilla and Tardà predict that the Government and the Generalitat will yield at the negotiating table
  • Sánchez warns that the dialogue table on Catalonia will be “difficult, long and complex”
  • The Prosecutor's Office asks the Supreme Court to reject Torra's appeal against his conviction for disobedience
  • ERC keeps the Government in suspense before the first decisive vote

La Moncloa had prepared a camaraderie set design, with a double walk through the palace gardens, first of the members of the table and after the two presidents, Sánchez and Quim Torra. Neither a tense gesture, nor a problem, everything was calm and relaxed walk chatting in pairs, in which you could see the Minister of Transportation, José Luis Ábalos, with Josep María Jové, an important ERC man who is accused in the cause of Court 13 of Barcelona because he is considered "the architect of the process ", which he left designed in his famous Moleskine - today he took another of his usual notebooks to the meeting. At the end of the procession, Carmen Calvo and Pere Aragonés, who speak very often, talked quietly through the gardens of La Moncloa before entering the room. Only the Foreign Action advisor, Alfred Bosch, remained.

Sánchez and Torra also offered relaxed images before entering and while posing for the press. The table chosen, in the Tàpies room, also gave a close atmosphere. Rectangular, glass, very narrow and with the two delegations sitting a short distance away with the presidents sitting in the middle. The protocol was followed on the Government side, with Carmen Calvo and María Jesús Montero sitting next to Pedro Sánchez, but it was broken on that of the Generalitat, with Elsa Artadi, who is no more than deputy and councilor of the Barcelona City Council, but Person of absolute confidence of Carles Puigdemont, sitting next to Aragonès. The two councilors of the Generalitat, Bosch and Jordi Puignerò, were almost at the tips. The Moncloa resolved the gap of Vice President Pablo Iglesias, sick of tonsillitis, extending the space of the ministers, who are seven in front of the eight envoys of the Generalitat.

The meeting does not have an agenda or an expected duration, and no one had high hopes that this first date, which is reached in a delicate political environment and with the shadow of the electoral advance in Catalonia, will serve a lot. The Catalan delegation will insist on holding an independence referendum and the amnesty of the imprisoned politicians, something that Sanchez has already rejected outright. But it is important the photo for the two delegations and especially the Government hopes that ERC will allow this Thursday to approve the path to the deficit adjustment, which is the step prior to the processing of the Budgets. The Executive and the PSOE also negotiated with Bildu and Junts per Catalunya to guarantee approval tomorrow, because the abstention of ERC is not enough. In that context, the photo of the table was important for the decision taken by the two Catalan independence groups.

At the end, María Jesús Montero will appear for the Government and Quim Torra for the Generalitat. The Executive has been flexible with all the necessary gestures to avoid any conflict. Torra will speak in the large press room, the one used after the Councils of Ministers and in the appearances of the president, which is usually only left for the head of the opposition. The regional presidents who come to La Moncloa always appear in the small room, called a briefing . There Artur Mas spoke the last time a Catalan president appeared in La Moncloa. Since then, already in full process , every time a president came to meet with Mariano Rajoy or later with Pedro Sánchez he appeared in the Blanquerna bookstore, one of the buildings of the Generalitat in Madrid, as a way to show distances with La Moncloa. The fact that Torra appears in the noble room reserved for the Government is another gesture to seek closeness. When Sanchez went to Barcelona three weeks ago, the Generalitat also reserved a special space to appear.

The way to get this dialogue table on the political conflict in Catalonia into operation has been long and exhausting for both parties, after an electoral campaign plagued by mutual attacks, in which Esquerra put the Socialists as its main enemy and Sánchez He dedicated himself to attacking independence in an attempt to capitalize on the citizens' vote. The arithmetic of the results left the referees republicans in order to achieve a majority and did not miss the opportunity to make the most of the PSOE.

Finally, the predictions of the ERC leader in Madrid, Gabriel Rufián, were fulfilled, who in the failed investiture of last July warned that curves were coming. "September complicates our political life for all of us and autumn will not be a good time to do politics, for obvious reasons," he said in reference to the publication of the judgment of the trial process. The management of the riots in Catalonia, which achieved tarnish political manifestations, was Sanchez's excuse to isolate Torra.

Although there were already a series of meetings between PSOE, Unidos Podemos and Esquerra after the elections, the talks in order to achieve the abstention of the Republicans in the second vote on Sanchez began on November 28. The main condition of ERC was the creation of a dialogue table between the central Government and the Generalitat, which recognized the political conflict in Catalonia. The Government tried to channel that demand through the bilateral commission that establishes the Statute of Autonomy. He also proposed a table of parties, which Rufián-led delegation ruled out.

Along the way, Esquerra put the conditions of the dialogue with the PSOE to a vote within its bases, a fact that increased the distrust between both parties. There were more meetings of the public, in some they were discovered in fraganti, and the Republicans endured Sanchez's pressure for the investiture to be before Christmas. Finally the Kings Bridge happened. However, in the background there has always been the fight between ERC and Junts per Catalunya, which initially welcomed the table coldly and maneuvered to finally take over the reins and manage the tempos. In fact, the claim of the 'president' an international mediator, a figure that exploded the previous approach, comes alive to this meeting.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-02-26

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