Relations between ERC and Junts are in poor health, but there is always a day when the ties are irreparably broken. The general policy debate, in which the postconvergents have threatened to raise a question of confidence with the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, may have been the straw that broke the patience of the Republican, who this afternoon met with the ministers of Junts and then he has summoned the general secretary of the formation, Jordi Turull, to try, in extremis, to save the furniture. But what scenarios arise from now.
The first, that Turull and Aragonès reach an armistice and everything remains the same. A new storm in a glass of water. ERC, in this case, would give in to Junts' challenge and leave unanswered the question of trust, raised by surprise late yesterday by the post-convergence spokesperson, Albert Batet, irritated by Aragonès's proposal to negotiate a law of clarity with the Government of Spain to place an agreed referendum on the horizon. And Junts, for his part, would withdraw that threat as if nothing had happened... until the next stumble.
Another possible scenario would be the immediate rupture, with which the ERC would hit the table and try to govern alone for as long as possible, negotiating with the PSC and the commons the approval of the budgets and trying to reach agreements concrete in the parliamentary day to day that could keep the work of the Government alive. But this scenario would be one of great instability, with Junts in the opposition leading the pro-independence radicalism, and it could not last long. If so, probably next year, at the latest, Aragonès would be forced to call elections.
A third possibility is the delayed break. That is, that the divorce takes place not now but in the next few days. The CUP has recently presented a question of confidence in the Parliamentary Table and this initiative has to be taken to a plenary session so that the Chamber can put it to a vote. Junts could then join the anti-capitalists in censoring the president and, in this hypothetical trance, Aragonès would be forced to expel the post-convergent ministers of the Government from him.
Finally, there is a fourth option, perhaps the most plausible, which postpones the final break until shortly before May 2023, so that both ERC and Junts can go to the municipal elections, in which both formations play many tricks of future, separately and can offer antagonistic programs without the contradiction of sharing a table at the Consell Executiu. This hypothesis, in addition, would allow Junts to hold the postponed internal consultation with the bases on their degree of satisfaction with compliance with the government pact with ERC, which will foreseeably give rise to the mandate to break up the coalition.
