Aragonès tests his negotiating strategy before the bases in the ERC National Congress

A game on the future of the Budgets of the Generalitat is played this Saturday in Lleida.

There the second part of the National Congress of the Republican Left is held, with the voting of the political and organizational papers.

It is a stress test for the negotiating strategy of Pere Aragonès with both the PSC and the PSOE and the

monocolor that presides.

The meeting of the highest training body overlaps with a very critical moment in the negotiation of the budget pact with the PSC, on whose success the solidity of the Executive's action depends.

Among the amendments received for the paper are thorny issues in conversations with the Socialists, such as the expansion of El Prat.

The management continues to defend the rejection of the plan "imposed" by Aena requested by some members of the bases, but taking care to close the door to other improvement scenarios.

And, therefore, maintain the bridge with those of Salvador Illa.

Since Junts left the Catalan Executive, last October, Aragonès and his people enjoy the bittersweet honeys of power.

The party headed by Oriol Junqueras displays its greatest shares of power and influence in the central government;

He has managed to reap the fruits of his commitment to dialogue with the reform of the Criminal Code that improves the situation of the leaders convicted of the

and is closer to his dream of being the central force in Catalan politics.

But, on the other hand, he lives the hardships of solitude in Parliament (he has lost more than a hundred votes) and this has been especially hard when negotiating the accounts.

ERC only has 33 deputies out of the 135 seats in Parliament.

There is already an agreement with En Comú Podem (9 votes), but it needs more support, either from its former partner or from the Socialists.

The PSC managed this week to get the Republicans to give in to accepting the culmination of the B-40, an orbital highway in Barcelona, ​​designed during the Franco regime, which the ERC questions for its environmental impact.

Despite the fact that Aragonès himself tried to sell the Copernican change as his assignment in the face of the last hurdle to close the accounts (which if everything comes to fruition they would come into force in April), Illa himself pointed to the expansion of the airport as the main issue that remains to close.

The Republicans are clear that the PSC acts for "electoralism" with the expansion of the budget pact.

In fact, both in Parliament and in the Government itself, they defend the change to the B-40 as an exercise in "responsibility", insisting that it is not their model.

Aragonès said last Thursday that he assumed "the political wear" of the decision and that can be measured in Congress in Lleida.

To this, however, will be added the issue of the airport and how it will manage to combine what is requested by up to 4 amendments on El Prat and the demands of the PSC to sign the pact.

It is not trivial that the negotiators of the Government and the PSC have called on Monday to continue with the talks.

The eyes are on the text that the bases end up voting in Lleida.

Among these four amendments presented is one by the party's former spokesperson in Madrid, Joan Tardà, and which was raised by the Baix Llobregat federation.

It seeks to "value the Government's position against the airport expansion project presented by Aena and the Government."

In September 2021, the National Council of the party approved a similar text in which it was rejected to expand the third track "affecting the protected area of ​​La Ricarda [within the EU's Natura 2000 network]."

Aragonès thus faces having to accept the voice of the grassroots without slamming the socialists.

The debate is served.

Voices within the party defend that sectoral issues of this type should not be included in a presentation, which they want to conceive with more substance and political background.

However, there will not be a specific debate on this issue in Lleida, as only two amendments are alive: one on the mention of the case of Montenegro in the Clarity Agreement on the referendum (the road map on the conditions for an agreed vote, that the Government rejects) and another on the participation of Valencians and Mallorcans in the Catalan electoral lists.

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