Pedro Sánchez's investiture accelerates. This Tuesday, the PSOE and ERC have closed the extremes of the amnesty law that the Republicans demanded and that the Socialists plan to present immediately in Congress, probably on Thursday. The articles are not definitively closed, because some points still have to be agreed with Junts, which will probably be negotiated this Wednesday, but the part demanded by ERC, which asked for a "complete amnesty" including those accused in the investigation of the protests of the Tsunami Democràtic platform, has been agreed.
The negotiation was finalised in a conversation between the acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, as reported by the two parties after 10 p.m. The socialist had spoken two weeks ago with the leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, but the two formations wanted to highlight that the closing of the negotiation has been done by Aragonès, something significant internally in ERC.
According to the press release, the two presidents "have unblocked the last details of the future amnesty law" and the negotiating teams of both parties are summoned "to the definitive closure, in the next few hours" of the pending agreements in other folders that were on the table and "will contain political and economic issues to be developed during the XV Legislature." Theoretically, there would be issues such as the transfer of Rodalies. The tone of the communiqué is one of imminent investiture. "The law will soon be registered in the Congress of Deputies" and the ERC bodies will also vote on the agreements very soon.
Sánchez's investiture thus seems definitively on track in the absence of finalizing the agreements with the other allies: PNV, Bildu and BNG. Everything is perfectly measured. First there was, on Saturday, Sánchez's speech before the Federal Committee of the PSOE defending the amnesty, on Monday came the delicate photo of the number three of the socialists, Santos Cerdán, with Carles Puigdemont in Brussels. And the next step, after the agreement with ERC, is the registration in Congress of the amnesty law, a milestone prior to the investiture. The Government and its allies are working with the scenario of registering it this week, on Thursday – this Wednesday is a holiday and registration does not open – so that it can be qualified on Friday in the Bureau, which is already convened, and there, in the subsequent Board of Spokespersons, the investiture plenary session for next week can be announced. As Sanchez said, "nothing is closed until everything is closed", and therefore everything could change at the last moment, but the initial plans are these.
The initial intention is to register the bill, which has been negotiated for weeks with Junts and ERC, with the signature of all the groups that support the investiture – PSOE, Sumar, PNV, Bildu, BNG and the two Catalan separatists – but they will still have to share it with the others, because it is carried out with great secrecy. Two months ago, when he laid out his conditions, Puigdemont insisted that he wanted the law passed before the investiture, something that the Socialists saw as unfeasible. It will not be like that, but at least it will be registered and qualified by the Bureau of Congress, as a way of guaranteeing that the law can go ahead.
When the pro-independence supporters presented their own amnesty law, in 2021, the lawyers rejected it as unconstitutional, and it was not qualified, but this rule, according to sources in the negotiations, will be completely different from that one, which was based on the fact that there was no crime in the procés, and therefore should not have any problem to start its processing, that it will be long and tortuous because the opposition will be very it and also the PP controls the Senate, where it can hinder its progress and delay the deadlines although not prevent it from going ahead, because Congress always has primacy.
In addition to the amnesty law, the political pact that was practically sanctioned with the photo of Puigdemont and Cerdán in Brussels and is now topped off with this conversation between Sánchez and Aragonès, includes other points that have been discussed for weeks and that the Socialists are confident will mean an agreement far beyond a simple investiture. At least the guarantee of approving the first Budgets, although the PSOE has negotiated with the intention of making it a real legislative pact. With Junts, things seem very tied up, but this group takes it for granted that they will obtain some of the milestones they demanded, especially the verifier to guarantee compliance with the agreements.
It also takes for granted agreements on the language and what they call the "national recognition" of Catalonia and whose progress throughout the legislature Junts hopes to condition its support for Sánchez. It is an issue on which there are still many details to be drawn up and everything can be delayed at the last minute, because there are two more weeks of margin for the investiture. The five-way pact is very complicated, especially because of the rivalry between Junts and ERC, but the initial plans with which the negotiators are working are very clear and include these decisive steps in the coming days to conclude in the investiture next week.
In the PSOE, he defends the photo that Cerdán took with Puigdemont, which has been highly criticized by the opposition as he is the secretary of organization of the PSOE and a man who fled his country in 2017 and has been dodging Spanish justice for six years. The Socialists believe that in a negotiation like this, the government must take steps and maintain that the photograph is taken with the intention of "talking to solve problems". Sources in the socialist leadership say that they are not uncomfortable with this photograph because it means taking a step "for reunion" and also unblocking the investiture. Cerdán, according to PSOE sources, did not know that Puigdemont was going to receive him in a room presided over by a huge painting that is a tribute to the referendum of October 1, 2017 with a large ballot box in the foreground. What was agreed was that the PSOE would make the photo and the video that were distributed, and in them you could hardly see that painting and the ballot box could not be seen. The photo that was sent to the media was agreed between the two groups. In the PSOE they minimise the importance of the context of that image, with the picture of the referendum in the room, and stress that the relevant thing is that there is an agreement, but in any case they point out that it is unthinkable in a negotiation to demand the interlocutor to change the decoration of his office to receive him. The painting was not placed for the meeting, it was there and presides over all the meetings of the leader of Junts, who continues to demand the referendum and has insisted that he will never renounce unilateralism, one of the issues that the socialists demanded of him during the negotiations. The meeting lasted an hour and comes after many conversations between Cerdán and leaders of Junts and discreet trips to Paris and other places.
Acceleration
In the absence of knowing the details of the text, the agreement between the PSOE and ERC ensures that different defendants in the cause of the Tsumani Democràtic, the protest movement that was born after the sentence of the procés, will also be benefited. Many of the activists have been acquitted, but the alleged leadership of that movement is being investigated by the National Court for terrorism offences. Marta Rovira, secretary general of ERC, and Josep Lluís Alay, head of Puigdemont's former president's office, are in that situation. Rovira, who lives in Switzerland, said months ago that she was not returning to Spain for fear of being charged with that crime.
ERC had hinted in recent days that there was some divergence on the scope of the casuistry in which Junts and the Socialists are working. On Monday, Republican spokeswoman Raquel Sans called for more coordination to get a "total amnesty." On Tuesday, his counterpart in the Catalan government, Patrícia Plaja, insisted on the same message, saying that "all cases of political reprisals, and this must also include the issue of the Democratic Tsunami". After the statement issued on Tuesday night, ERC sources see everything rectified
Junts, and especially its founder, is now faced with the task of ensuring that the grassroots digest a good digestion of an agreement that only three months ago involved challenging the confrontational path against the State that began in 2017. There is nothing to suggest that neither in the National Council nor in the consultation of the rank and file over the weekend the former president will find an answer that would unseat the pact, but for the first time he faces the challenge of explaining himself to the grassroots. ERC is waiting for the agreement to be closed, which until today the party's leading figures insisted on describing as still raw. The PSOE will also finish its consultation with the membership by the weekend. Everything is ready to go to the investiture next week. And if nothing goes wrong, something that is always possible in such a complicated negotiation, the days and milestones of each of them until that moment are negotiated and priced.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Read more
I'm already a subscriber
_