The Government offers support to the Govern while ERC parks self-determination

The dialogue table between the central and Catalan governments has borne its first fruits, without going into the most glassy issues for the time being.

ERC puts aside its maximum demands for self-determination and undertakes to continue acting within the legal framework, in exchange for some concessions from the Pedro Sánchez Executive, especially in linguistic matters.

The Government will address the European Parliament to request that it allow the use of Catalan and expresses its support for the law on languages ​​in education approved by the Parliament, with the vote in favor of the Socialists, and challenged by the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia before the Constitutional.

The central governments and the Generalitat will go on a summer break with the Catalan folder on track for the moment.

After the meeting, two weeks ago, between the presidents Pedro Sánchez and Pere Aragonès, the turn this Wednesday was for the dialogue table between both Executives, now without their highest representatives.

And for the first time it went beyond the simple photo: unlike the two previous meetings of the bilateral body, agreements did come out of this one.

The most specific, on various measures to promote Catalan.

And another, more imprecise, on what both parties have called the "dejudicialization of the political conflict."

Both delegations left the meeting in La Moncloa happy and made sure to leave some doors open so that, shortly, more fruits can be presented from a negotiation that violently criticizes the right and also the ERC partners in the Government, Junts .

The agreements are contained in two documents that convey a certain climate of return to institutional normality after the stumbling block of

of espionage against independence leaders, which clouded relations between the Executives.

The two proposals that the Generalitat have put on the table since this forum was agreed, in exchange for facilitating Sánchez's investiture, are amnesty for those affected by judicial or administrative causes related to the

and the holding of an agreed self-determination referendum .

The central government's rejection of these two possibilities is already known, but, for now, both parties have granted each other a margin to negotiate other legal reforms.

The Government's thesis is that, before addressing its demand for self-determination, "equal conditions" must be guaranteed, that is, that there are no "reprisals and exiles", in the words of the Minister of the Presidency, Laura Vilagrà, who led the Catalan delegation.

At that point, ERC demands changes in the Penal Code.

The central issue is the possible modification of the crime of sedition, which could translate into relief for the criminal situation of those who have fled abroad, such as

Carles Puigdemont or Esquerra's general secretary, Marta Rovira.

According to government sources, the initial position expressed by the Catalan formation is to abolish this crime, for which most of the

leaders were convicted .

On the other hand, the Executive is not willing to go beyond "harmonizing it with the most advanced European laws", according to the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, who headed the representation of the central government, together with the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz and the ministers of Territorial Policy and Culture.

That would mean softening the penalties with which it is punished, which would also lower the pending charges in cases such as Puigdemont's.

Bolaños repeatedly insisted that the government will only address this reform when it has a “sufficient parliamentary majority”, a way of inviting the ERC to negotiate.

The impression on both sides is that there is room for talks, because the Republicans do not present the elimination of crime as a red line either.

In the document signed after the meeting, the two parties limit themselves to expressing their willingness to try to reach an agreement in this regard in Parliament before the end of the year.

That document that deals with the so-called "dejudicialization" is, above all, a declaration of principles, without concrete measures.

But the Government emphasizes the relevance of the representatives of the Generalitat committing to act without breaking the legal framework and exhibits it as proof that the situation in Catalonia has been pacified.

In the document there are express references to the fact that any "political solution" must be reached within a "legal security framework", "according to democratic principles and order" and with the support of "a broad and transversal social majority".

The text also includes demands from the independentists, such as the rejection of "the criminalization of democratic political projects" in order to allow a "balanced and guaranteed negotiation."

In practice,

Despite the fact that the Generalitat had always wanted to separate the dialogue table from the discussion of sectoral issues, in order to highlight the importance of resolving the political conflict, the shielding of Catalan was the other great point of the La Moncloa meeting.

Vilagrà justified it as an exception to the constant "prosecution of the Catalan educational model".

The document approved on this issue includes the Government's express support for the new law on languages ​​in education recently approved by Parliament with the support of the PSC.

Bolaños himself referred to this new regulation as "an example of very broad transversal agreements."

The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia understands that this law ignores its sentence that forced to teach a minimum of 25% of subjects in Spanish and has asked the Constitutional Court to examine it.

Instead of this quota, the regulation approved by the Parliament leaves autonomy to each school to decide the distribution between languages ​​based on their sociolinguistic circumstances.

The document approved at the table indicates that "Catalan must continue to be the language normally used as a vehicle" in the classroom, while Spanish must have guarantees of an "adequate presence in the curricula and linguistic projects".

In the field of protection of Catalan, in addition to the school, the Government undertakes to ask the European Parliament to allow the use of that language.

Bolaños guaranteed that the same will be done with the other co-official languages ​​in Spain if the regional governments involved request it.

At the same time, the two parties agree to expand the presence of all the co-official languages ​​in the Senate, where an initiative in this regard is already being negotiated.

In Congress, on the other hand, the PSOE recently rejected a similar initiative from all the nationalist groups.

Vilagrà explained that Junts had already been informed of the contents of the meeting.

And the first reaction of the ERC partners in the Government was not very effusive.

Its spokesman, Josep Rius, considered that the table is moving away from its initial objectives and criticized that it addresses sectoral issues, "however respectable they may be."

"It would be good for the president to explain in parliamentary headquarters the orientation that the table is taking," said the Junts spokesman.