The thirty members of the National Citizens Committee saw each other's faces this Friday of Dolores through the computer or mobile screen in a telematic meeting.
Also crucial.
An extraordinary appointment in which the general secretary of CS, Adrián Vázquez, intended to save his strategy of diluting himself in the PP as a formation and saying goodbye to a party that he was able to govern and then fell into the abyss.
But in that abyss there were still six deputies of the Catalan Parliament, led by the spokesperson, Carlos Carrizosa, who flatly refused to dissolve.
Although the Catalan parliamentarian was not the only one, since a good part of the militancy in Catalonia had joined his war and other positions that are still scattered throughout the rest of Spain, mainly in the town councils, where CS still retains about 300 councilors.
In addition to former leaders and part of the bases.
This national committee was formed in January of last year after the primaries for the party's leadership, which pitted Vázquez's list against that of former parliamentary spokesperson Edmundo Bal.
But some of the 30 leaders who initially made up the decision-making body had been leaving, mainly because the majority lost their public office in the regional and local elections of May 28 and the general elections of July 26, such as former leader Inés Arrimadas.
Others, like the former vice mayor of Madrid Begoña Villacís, remained.
Vázquez had been developing the operation of a common ballot for the European elections on June 9 with the PP for months.
Close to the popular MEPs Esteban González Pons and Dolors Montserrat, he had already practically done it when the acting Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, brought forward the regional electoral call.
Now the strategy had to be common.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo had set himself the goal of integrating two of the three parties—the PP, Ciudadanos and Vox—into which the right has divided in recent years.
And neither Carrizosa nor other members of the party were willing to make that offer, but to a broad constitutionalist front such as a great coalition for 12-M.
After the breakdown of the agreement, the National Committee agreed this Friday to attend the Catalan 12-M polls and the European polls separately.
“From Ciudadanos we express, now more than ever, our firm commitment to offer a political alternative to the voters of Catalonia and in the next European contest, through the defense of the rule of law, the Constitution, our liberal values, and the reforms that our country urgently needs,” the statement says.
But first you will have to do a primary process to choose the candidates.
April 8 is the deadline to register candidates at the Catalan polls.
The majority of polls already published give it zero seats in the next regional elections in Catalonia, which saw the birth and growth of the party since 2006.
“The PP wanted guarantees for the noise.
And it's over,” sources close to Vázquez say about this Friday's meeting.
“That has truncated a negotiation that could have gone ahead.
Adrián has explained that he never sought integration and that an agreement was sought until the end, which has not been possible.
"They wanted guarantees and we have not even arrived with an offer on the table."
Most sources present at the meeting described the meeting as “calm” and focused on Vázquez's explanation of how the agreement had been frustrated due to the impossibility of a coalition with the PP.
Along with Vázquez, CS retained five other MEPs, such as Jordi Cañas and Eva Potcheva, who in recent months have worked hard to attack the amnesty law from the European institutions.
Citizens sources in Catalonia were willing that in the European elections the formula would be integration under the acronym of the PP, because the European Parliament offers the possibility of occupying a seat with the liberal group and not with the popular Europeans.
The party had moved in June of last year from the imposing headquarters on Madrid's five-story Alcalá street to a one-story apartment in Príncipe de Vergara.
Shortly before, the same National Committee decided not to participate in the general elections of 23-J, after a disastrous result in the regional and local elections of 28-M.
They also did not retain Francisco Igea's seat in the Cortes of Castilla y León, as the attorney general confronted the national leadership after the decision not to appear at the general polls alongside Bal.
Both started a current with harsh criticism against Vázquez, whom they accused of not attending in order to keep the money from the party's coffers and remain afloat until the European elections.
After numerous layoffs, the team still had a financial cushion of about two million euros, according to party sources.
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