The dialogue table between the Spanish and Catalan Governments starts this morning in Moncloa with a broad consensus document to advance in the dejudicialization of the procés, which will be ratified at the meeting. Likewise, both executives plan to approach an agreement to shield and support the Catalan language.
The main folder thus focuses on establishing clear guidelines for action to advance in the dejudicialization, guidelines that will be carried out in phases. Therefore, there will be no announcements of very specific legal reforms, but the roadmap "with guarantees and method" will be established to achieve the objectives. From the Government, some of the legal reforms have been pointed out to channel the "folder of repression". Among them, the reform of the gag law, the modification of the functioning of the Court of Accounts and the reform of the Penal Code. Regarding the modification of the crime of sedition, the Spanish Executive yesterday recalled that an absolute majority is needed in the Chamber.
The negotiation table will therefore mark the path of this dejudicialization process that has several fronts. And from the Government it is recalled that this is the first step to be resolved in order to later address the resolution of the political conflict and that is how it will be presented at today's meeting.
It will be the first time, according to sources from the Catalan Executive, that a clear and guaranteeing document of the path to follow in the coming months is presented by consensus. In the new meeting to be held this year, the specific reforms will be entered into, as has been addressed in the preparatory meetings between both executives.
Another of the issues on which there is agreement is to resolve the need to shield the Catalan language and remove it from the judicial process –with respect to teaching at school– in which it finds itself. Measures to support Catalan are also planned in a folder that has been negotiated by the Minister of Culture, Miquel Iceta, and the Minister of Culture, Natàlia Garriga, who are part of the negotiating table.
The meeting will begin at 10 am in Moncloa and the delegations will be headed by the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the Minister of the Presidency, Laura Vilagrà. On behalf of the central Executive there will also be, in addition to Iceta, Vice President Yolanda Díaz and Minister Isabel Rodríguez. On the Catalan side, ministers Roger Torrent and Joan Ignasi Elena attended, along with Garriga.
With this negotiated roadmap, it is considered that an important step has been taken to advance in specific contents that will resolve the Catalan conflict. And, likewise, a new political stage is opening after bilateral relations were frozen by the Pegasus case. The Government wants to set a new course in relations with ERC to face the rest of the legislature. And the Republicans intend to strengthen their strategy and their political weight, especially after their JxCat partners have decided to distance themselves from the dialogue table and open a divergent front. Junts announced on Monday a strategy to rebuild the unity of the independence movement with a real negotiation based on "amnesty and self-determination."
The Presidència recalled yesterday that amnesty and self-determination are part of this negotiating process with the Executive of Pedro Sánchez, but the first step is to resolve this extensive dejudicializing folder that ranges from the sanctions of the Court of Accounts, the processes pending in the courts of Barcelona and, obviously, the situation of former president Carles Puigdemont and the ministers weighing on the European orders issued by Judge Pablo Llarena.
The document that will be approved today goes one step further than the one signed by Bolaños and Vilagrà at the meeting they held this month. At that time, both governments already committed to ending the "judicialization of the political conflict, since it increases the polarization of positions and makes it difficult to find solutions." And they rejected the "persecution or criminalization of the different political options."
The dialogue table meets almost a year after the last meeting that took place in Barcelona, which was attended by President Pedro Sánchez and President Pere Aragonès.
