“Short step and long view,” prescribes the acting Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, given the ongoing negotiations to articulate a new investiture and legislative majority. And every day, Pedro Sánchez himself takes a new step on the complex path towards his re-election. The acting President of the Government thus pronounced the word amnesty yesterday, for the first time in public.
Although it is the key to being able to close an agreement with Junts and ERC, essential for his inauguration, Sánchez carefully avoided saying it until yesterday. And he did it, very significantly, in the presence of the presidents of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and of the European Council, Charles Michel, at the end of the informal meeting of the community club in Granada. All of Sánchez's steps are measured to the millimeter.
“We know Sumar's proposal, as we also know that of other political parties in relation to the amnesty,” Sánchez stressed about the initiatives promoted by Yolanda Díaz and the independence groups. “It is still a way of trying to overcome the judicial consequences of the situation that Spain experienced with one of the worst territorial crises in the history of democracy in 2017,” acknowledged the leader of the PSOE.
But he warned, as Bolaños also did yesterday in Barcelona, that the proposal championed by Sumar “is not the position of the PSOE.”
Sánchez insisted on his determination to achieve “a royal investiture”, to fulfill the King's mandate and the mandate of the Spanish people at the polls, as opposed to the failed investiture of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. “The Spaniards have spoken, they have told us what the parliamentary representation of each and every one of the groups is,” he alleged. And he thus assured that "the duty of all parties is to try to work to understand each other and achieve a government in Spain as soon as possible." “And that's what I'm doing,” he warned.
However, he claimed that he still cannot explain the scope of his possible agreement with the Catalan independence movement. “I cannot anticipate an agreement until it occurs, because we are in full negotiation,” he justified.
“What I can guarantee to the Spanish people is that it will be an agreement, when it occurs, that will be absolutely transparent and public,” he assured. With the same objective that he stressed that he has been encouraging since he settled in Moncloa five years ago: “Policies of progress and coexistence, within the framework of the Constitution.”
He thus guaranteed that all agreements reached with the independence groups will be within the Constitution, and will also be validated by the legislative power, with a majority in Congress. “And even if they want to be appealed by the opposition, they will also be validated by the Constitutional Court,” he stated without a shadow of a doubt.
But it is not yet the time to reveal them. “The agreements will be known when they are finalized. That is, there will be no agreement until everything is agreed,” he warned.
The leader of the PSOE also did not rule out that, in this process of conversations, a member of his negotiating team could hold a meeting with the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who has fled from Spanish justice in Belgium since 2017. “We are in the negotiation process. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” he insisted.
And he announced that he will accelerate the negotiation with all the groups “so that there is a real investiture and comply with the mandate of the Spanish.” In fact, Sánchez will complete next week the round of consultations that he began last Wednesday with Yolanda Díaz. On Monday, after meeting with the leaders of the UGT and CC.OO., he will hold a meeting with Alberto Núñez Feijóo. On Tuesday, with the BNG and the PNV. On Wednesday, with UPN, CC and ERC, as well as with the CEOE. And on Friday, with EH Bildu and Junts.
Among the multiple fronts that must be joined together to advance towards the investiture, Bolaños clarified that Salvador Illa is not included in the PSOE negotiating team, made up of seven leaders. In this way, the minister responded to the lack of confidence that Puigdemont expressed, by implying his opposition to the PSC leader having a leading role in the negotiation.
“We are seven colleagues who are going to work as a team in these conversations,” said Bolaños. The message was addressed to Waterloo. From Junts, a “lack of trust” was cited in the role of the PSC in achieving the mayorship of Barcelona. But the electoral future in Catalonia has a lot to do with the battle between the Catalan parties. Bolaños pointed out that although Illa is not on the negotiating team, his role is fundamental "both in the present and in the future of Catalonia."
