The acting Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the first secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, have announced an agreement with ERC that contributes seven more votes to the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. The only thing missing is the agreement with Puigdemont to assume that the socialist leader will be able to remain in La Moncloa and face a new legislature. Thus, now, everything once again depends on the commitment to Junts, something that the socialists have not achieved so far. The fugitive Puigdemont has been meeting since early in the morning with the leadership of his party analyzing the socialist offer and in the middle of the afternoon he concluded the meeting without being able to announce the pact.
Bolaños has signed the agreement with the leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, one of those convicted of the 2017 attempt against the State and later pardoned by the coalition government. The pact between socialists and republicans was practically made last Tuesday after a telephone conversation between Sánchez and the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, and was only waiting for the socialists to accept the latest conditions: the transfer, financing included, of Rodalíes and the improvement of Catalan financing through the forgiveness of part of its debt. According to Bolaños, this latest agreement will be extended to the rest of the CCAA.
Illa has assured that today we are “closer to an investiture” that builds a wall “in front of the right and the extreme right, as the majority of Spaniards voted. We cannot give any option to either the right or the extreme right,” has emphasized. “We continue to advance on the path of coexistence and political normalization in Catalonia,” said Illa, who added that the climate of confrontation has been the result of the management of the right that “frustrated the aspirations of Catalans.”
“As a socialist and as a Catalan,” he stated, “I believe that we are witnessing a new stage that will leave behind the political rupture that became a social rupture. Catalan society has turned the page. We will leave behind years of resentment, absence, dialogue and disagreements “.
Bolaños, for his part, explained that the agreement facilitates “the investiture and the legislature with a progressive Government.” In his opinion, this pact responds “to the mandate of the polls.” “There is no other way to do politics than with dialogue and agreement,” he assured. The agreements reached, he insisted, “improve coexistence and turn the page and also improve public services.” Furthermore, the pact contemplates “the approval of an amnesty law that will return to politics what should never have left it.” However, this law continues to be negotiated with other forces and until these talks are concluded its content will not be made public. With this explanation, the acting Minister of the Presidency alluded to the contacts with Junts that at the moment remain open.
In a parallel appearance, ERC leader Oriol Junqueras explained that the amnesty included in the agreement will be “complete”, erasing the crimes of all those convicted and prosecuted by the process. “Catalonia wins in the economic and social sphere” with this pact, he pointed out, although he has also warned that it is, for the moment, only for the investiture, that is: the support of the pro-independence Republicans for a Sánchez Government will only be will continue to the extent that bilateral dialogue and compliance with the agreements reached prosper.
He has also specified that the State will forgive the 15,000 million contributed by the Autonomous Liquidity Fund to Catalonia, something that “will allow savings in credit interest of 2,300 million euros.” This will partially “relieve” the fiscal deficit of the autonomous community. In addition, there are measures to guarantee the improvement of financing of public services in Catalonia: security, justice and research. “Today Catalonia is the one who wins,” stressed Junqueras, for whom the injustice is finally beginning to be “repaired.”
Junqueras has also detailed that the transfer of Rodalíes will result in the creation of a joint company between Catalonia and the State, in which the Generalitat will have, in addition to the presidency, the majority share.
According to the ERC leader, the central government has recognized the “political conflict between the State and Catalan society” that must be resolved “by democratic methods” and, furthermore, that “when there is a majority that expresses itself democratically it is the obligation of the institutions put in place the necessary mechanisms so that this expression can occur.” In his opinion, the main task of the negotiation table “between governments” that is now being relaunched should be to achieve this: sponsor the necessary conditions so that the citizens of Catalonia can vote in a referendum. This should not exclude, he said, the creation of a second dialogue table between parties.
