The highest governing body of Junts between congresses, the national council, meets this Saturday in El Morell (Tarragonès), between lights and shadows, after a week in which the party has been in the foreground every day thanks to the vote of the first decrees of the central government, which Moncloa managed to validate in an agonizing way with the help of the post-convergents in stoppage time.
JxCat abstained at the last moment after having assured for days that they would reject the initiatives of the central Executive. In return, the formation of Jordi Turull and Laura Borràs obtained several counterparts – in some cases to their perplexity –, such as the delegation of powers in immigration matters as the most notable measure, although the political agreement has yet to be finalized and approved in the Congress of Deputies with an organic law. This is one of the demands that Carles Puigdemont formulated when he delimited the playing field to negotiate with the PSOE. Thus, since Wednesday, the formation has not hidden its satisfaction with this circumstance. “In the end we are there every day…”, summarize sources from the party just before a meeting in which what happened this week and also in previous weeks will be assessed.
The previous appointment of this body, which had a meeting scheduled at the beginning of December that was postponed until this Saturday due to the negotiation with the PSOE in Geneva with an international verifier, was before the agreement with the socialists for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. Therefore, the leadership's analysis will cover the party's turn, the agreement for the approval of an amnesty law and the new scenario.
In addition, today the collegiate body is expected to validate a resolution from the party's migration sector that calls for the holding of a convention on immigration to define Junts' position in that area, in anticipation of it being an important issue in the next campaign. Catalan electoral.
Also to block the way for Aliança Catalana, the party of the mayor of Ripoll, Sílvia Orriols, which articulates a sovereigntist discourse that includes rejection of foreigners. A fact that worries Junts, both because of the electoral impact and because of the effect that all of this can have on social cohesion in general. The party fears that what it considers a “narrow” vision of what it means to be Catalan will end up prevailing in some sectors of the independence movement and that a social elevator that some already see as broken will be put even more at risk. Beyond the numbers, the fear is that the challenge of Jordi Pujol's axiom that "he who lives and works in Catalonia and wants to be is Catalan" or that of Josep Benet (PSUE) of a sol poble at a time when The percentage of the immigrant population has grown and Catalonia has reached eight million inhabitants.
The resolution addressed today does not speak in any case of multiple recidivism, which has focused the public debate and criticism from rivals after complaints from some mayors of Maresme. It advocates analyzing the migration phenomenon in all its complexity in order to provide tools to local leaders and adopt a thoughtful stance on the matter.
If the planned script is fulfilled, a proposal from the management, which was unanimously approved by the executive, will also be approved, according to which the independents who participated with Junts in the municipal elections can join the party with full powers. and rights, without a waiting period to participate in a congress, etc. “It's like a membership recruitment campaign,” they point out in the direction. However, cadres who stayed in the PDECat at first, with the new scenario and the dissolution of the other post-convergent brand, could now enroll in JxCat.
With this favorable wave, confirmed even by some recent surveys, taking into account the current moment, Junts has put in its sights not only Esquerra Republicana, whom they believe they will surpass at the polls in the next elections to the Parliament, which will be within a year at most. There are those who consider that the Catalan socialists, led by Salvador Illa, today the main opposition party, are JxCat's rival to beat. An element that complicates, therefore, any type of agreement with the PSC in Barcelona.
That's as far as it goes... although this triumphalist reading of the moment is not shared by everyone in the management. Side B in the post-convergent formation has to do with the controversy in the Parliament with two deputies who are part of Borràs' close circle, Aurora Madaula and Cristina Casol, who have denounced "silent violence" and gender discrimination of some colleagues. An accusation that has been denied by the majority of the group's deputies, also the female deputies, and even by the general secretary. That may be the big elephant in the room during the day.
In November, Casol activated the protocol provided by the Catalan Chamber for these cases, while Madaula, who is still on leave, also on those dates, accused his colleagues from the lectern of the chamber during an event on the occasion of 25-N. The second secretary of the Board, for her part, initially went to the Junts guarantees committee, although she later desisted from presenting a document with her version of the events, claiming that she does not trust that body and alleged that He plans to go to other instances that have not been revealed. The majority of deputies consider that this whole matter has to do with political disagreements.
With all that background noise and that issue, which has not gotten any worse, to be resolved... before Christmas there were cadres from the most pragmatic wing of JxCat, very angry with this whole situation, who considered that it was time to collect signatures and force an extraordinary congress to renew the leadership, consolidate the turn that the party has taken in recent months and face the next electoral cycle with the party organized and a defined candidate, although the application of the amnesty law may condition the latter. aspect. They also wanted to come out in defense of the guarantee body, which in some cases has been questioned. In the end, those options were rejected. Furthermore, the management, with Turull at the helm, prone to calmness and not making decisions in a hurry, did not agree that this is the time for all that, although the general secretary said this week clearly that there is no discrimination at Junts.
These same cadres have already suspected on other occasions the possibility of holding a congress in which the panorama is clarified after in the spring of 2022 there was an in extremis pact between Turull and Borràs that avoided the confrontation of projects and increased internal tension before of the municipal ones. However, that agreement has not prevented tensions and disagreements between the two souls of the party, the most activist and the most possibilist. The other hot potato that there will be tomorrow in El Morell has to do with the finances of the party, the departure of the Government and the fact of being out of the deputations has left the coffers of the formation in a delicate situation, as reported yesterday Nació Digital.
