The approach of the PP to Junts, "a party whose tradition and legality are not in doubt", as Esteban González Pons stated yesterday to justify the start of the uncertain and wavering negotiations with the formation of Carles Puigdemont, opens up old disputes between the popular Catalans , who do not have a unanimous position on what is the relationship that must be maintained with the independence movement of a convergent matrix.
There was a time when the harmony of the PP with Jordi Pujol and later with Artur Mas was good and the "programmatic coincidences" that the MEP and vice-secretary for institutional action in the executive branch of Alberto Núñez Feijóo referred to yesterday prevailed over the differences in identity and territorial issues. But the Tinell pact and the independence process blew up the bridges that now would have to be rebuilt in a hurry so that the investiture of the PP candidate can go ahead.
Although politics, as the general coordinator of the PP, Elías Bendodo, also said yesterday, "is the art of the possible, and that can only be achieved through dialogue, without walls or trenches", the reality is seen differently from Catalonia, the scene of the social fracture that five years ago triggered Puigdemont's unilateral declaration of independence.
The idea of sitting down to negotiate with Junts has always been viewed with caution by the president of the PP of Catalonia, Alejandro Fernández, who fears that the party, which was left to the bone by the rise of Ciudadanos, will fall again at the feet of the horses now that he was beginning to recover. In addition, the main beneficiary of this agreement with conservative sovereignty would be Vox, whose strength in Parliament is already much higher than that of the popular.
Be that as it may, if Feijóo speaks with Puigdemont and in the end the former president reaches an agreement with the PSOE that allows Pedro Sánchez to continue in Moncloa, the position of the PP in Catalonia will be greatly affected. "If you accuse Sánchez of negotiating with a fugitive from justice, you cannot do the same, unless you assume sanchismo as a method," Fernández warned a few days ago to categorically rule out the pact with Junts.
However, there is a current of the Catalan PP that advocates an opening towards moderate Catalanism and whose voice is gaining strength as the crisis of the procés recedes in time, while some fragments of the CiU explosion seek to coalesce into a new center-right project.
Something of this was seen in the candidacy for mayor of Barcelona, which incorporated members of the Lliga Democràtica, promoter of pardons for the leaders of 1-O. Daniel Sirera, who in the end leaned towards the socialist Jaume Collboni, could also have made Xavier Trias, from Junts, mayor, with whom the leader of the PP municipal group had talks.
"Only the right can propose a well-done amnesty and a constitutional referendum without going to civil war," says a source in this sector.
