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At least until last Tuesday's vote in Congress, Carles Puigdemont believed that the PSOE could not fail to approve the amnesty law. Therefore, Junts had room to pressure until it forced the changes that it believed shielded the rule from the actions of some judges. After the PSOE stood up this week, the Junts leaders appear conciliatory to redirect the negotiation because, at the end of the day, Puigdemont cannot so easily allow the amnesty not to see the light.
So it is most likely that in the coming weeks both parties will briefly tweak the text to approve it. But what happened represents a turning point in this turbulent beginning of the legislature that opens many questions about its viability.
Memory is fragile, but we must remember that the beginnings of the PSOE's relationship with ERC were not easy either. The Republicans turned the ship after 2017, not without some difficulties. In fact, Pedro Sánchez took advantage of a slamming door from ERC to call elections for the first time. It was in 2019, when Republicans refused to vote on the first budgets, despite the fact that they were expansive bills after years of austerity. Afterwards, Gabriel Rufián deployed very harsh rhetoric for quite some time and subscribed to the idea of "ERC votes sweat..." until reaching today, when the relations and trust between both parties are greased, beyond the logical differences. policies.
Can Junts follow a similar path? That was Sánchez's desire. In the interview that La Vanguardia published last Sunday, the President of the Government assured that involving Junts in the governance of Spain is a step that strengthens democracy. It is true that neither Junts nor ERC have the governability of Spain as their objective. Not even Jordi Pujol had it. Otherwise, he would have agreed to include ministers from his party when José María Aznar offered it to him. They simply participated in that governance in their own interest, that of their voters or, at most, of the territory in which they operate, in this case Catalonia. But if anyone has very little interest in anything other than independence, it is Puigdemont.
To know if Junts can reorient its strategy as ERC has done or not, it will take patience and time. The leaders of the post-convergent formation need to explain to their people (and even explain to themselves) that they are not following exactly the same steps as ERC, a path that they have bitterly criticized for six years. They can no longer be blamed for supporting the socialists who once endorsed 155, since they have invested Sánchez. But they can emphasize that ERC does not know how to negotiate, that they allow themselves to be fooled, while Puigdemont does put his foot down on none other than the State government.
The idea of giving them a warning since the tortuous validation of the anti-crisis decrees had been brewing in Moncloa. Sánchez personally gave the order to stand down last Tuesday and not make any more concessions to Junts. It could have been in another vote, but the president chose, to issue his warning, the issue that most worries the independence movement, which is the amnesty. Even if Junts overturned that law, Sánchez does not plan to call elections. He wants to make it clear that it is not Puigdemont who has the red button, but him.
Some minister recommended him after the investiture that he forget about the 2023 budgets and focus directly on those of 2024 so as not to have to negotiate twice with the independentists. But Sánchez wanted to maintain the line of the last legislature, when he managed to approve the accounts every year. He now contemplates that possibility. It would be about creating a slower pace and it remains to be seen if that would facilitate the relationship with Junts.
But what wears out the PSOE the most is not only what Puigdemont can extract (it remains to be seen what the immigration transfer turns out to be), but the way in which Junts sells the relationship, as a constant humiliation of the Government. And it will be difficult for that dynamic to change, at least in the short term. Junts will continue practicing a tough version of that “jump through the hoop” or “turn it inside out like a sock” that Pujol one day dedicated to the PP. And now Jordi Turull summarizes with the threat to the PSOE that if they do not meet his expectations, "colorín colorado."
