Sánchez and the necessary collaborator of ERC

The ERC deputies applauding the ultra Javier Ortega Smith standing up.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
25 November 2022 Friday 15:30
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Sánchez and the necessary collaborator of ERC

The ERC deputies applauding the ultra Javier Ortega Smith standing up. The nocturnal sessions of the Congress allow improper licenses of television prime time. But after hearing adjectives such as “filoetarras”, “coup plotters” and “traitors to the homeland”, that at the stroke of midnight the Vox deputy threatened to withdraw the Spanish nationality from some independentistas could only provoke a sarcastic ovation from the Republicans. ERC will sign up for the elimination of the crime of sedition. A balm for their strategy, beyond the many buts and resignations, which allows them to hang the title of "useful party" for Catalonia in the face of the abstentions of Junts, simple spectators from the sofa, according to Gabriel Rufián.

Pedro Sánchez has guaranteed to exhaust the legislature in 2023 and sees his image as a peacemaker for Catalonia strengthened. The merit is its own, bridling the entire party, with ERC as a necessary collaborator and co-beneficiary despite the mistrust with which the legislature began. After two years of useless threats, the Republicans have found their most pleasant refuge in contention. There was silence during the negotiation prior to the registration of the proposal to reform the Penal Code. Silence to avoid linking the elimination of the crime of sedition with his more than expected vote on the budgets. And silence from Rufián in the chamber about the aspiration to reform the crime of embezzlement, which would benefit dozens of senior officials from 2017 with Josep Maria Jové and Lluís Salvadó already awaiting trial.

The conditions of the negotiation and the resignations compensate the Republicans in their polls against the confrontational road map that Junts clings to with the figure of Carles Puigdemont. The suppression of sedition outweighed the discomfort over the reference to intimidation in the definition of the new crime of aggravated public disorder and the extension of the minimum sentence from one to three years. There they will have Òmnium in front of them, fleeing from populism and the attacks on the Government carried out by the ANC, but supported by human rights organizations.

Eliminating sedition was a priority and neglecting Junts, the consequence of the loss of focus of the post-convergents after leaving the Government. If they are not in the debate, it is not necessary to invoke them, it is the maximum to apply. It is Sánchez himself who does the job by placing the "separatists" of Junts, together with the "separators" of PP, Cs and Vox. Now begins another battle that will put socialists and republicans face to face. That starts with the budget of the Generalitat and will go through the new electoral cycle in Catalonia.

If Sánchez demanded that ERC not link the sedition reform and the budget negotiation in public, Salvador Illa does not digest that in Palau they intend to mix folders and aspire to add the vote of the 33 socialists for free in an operation of simple exchange. Socialists and Republicans know that the picture of the budgets in Catalonia, if there are any, will be that of a tripartite with the electoral swords held high.

If ERC puffs out its chest –less than in the two previous budgets, Rufián did not even appear to sell the pact– due to its achievements with 13 deputies in Madrid, the PSC remembers that in Parliament there is a tie at 33, so it aspires to an impact distributed to 50%. And the staging also enters into the hypothetical pact. The negotiation is not going to be comfortable. Illa is upset by the treatment given by ERC, by the data that is hidden behind the screens in the technical meetings and the intemperate reproaches for statements here or there.

And Junts… is in a waiting position. Waiting to know the future of Laura Borràs, that she will be tried in February, which places the sentence of the TSJC in the municipal pre-campaign. Waiting for the recalculation of Jordi Turull's sentence by the Supreme Court, in case he can return to institutional politics for the next Catalan ones. But above all, while waiting to clarify the situation of Carles Puigdemont, his seat in the European Parliament, his immunity and the future of Euro-orders. Only after knowing the resolutions of the European justice, the ex-president would launch himself to validate a leadership in the party with an eye on re-disputing the race for the Generalitat. And there is more than one plan afoot.