"Today we are still far from the historic commitment". This was the main and almost the only key that Míriam Nogueras gave yesterday about how the negotiations with the PSOE are going for the possible investiture of Pedro Sánchez after the meeting of the acting president of the central government with Junts per Catalunya in the Congress of Deputies , the last meeting of the PSOE leader's round of contacts with the parliamentary groups. "If it is about doing the same thing that has been done for the last four years, then the votes of Junts are not what the PSOE is looking for", added the leader of JxCat in Madrid.
After the liturgy and the staging of the negotiation of these last days, the talks of the socialists with the other parties to try to tie the investiture will enter from next week in a new phase, in which the will of Ferraz is that there is "discretion" and fly off the public radar. In this, at least, they agree with Junts, who is betting on maintaining the negotiating strategy of silence and prudence, a tactic that, in their opinion, is working well for them. "We will be careful and follow the line that the party has been following for weeks, which is to not comment on anything. When it has been necessary to speak, we have spoken", said the spokeswoman for the formation in the Lower House yesterday when asked for the details of the negotiation.
The photo of Nogueras with Sánchez and the secretary of organization of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, one of the main negotiators, came after that of both socialists with EH Bildu, an image that revolted the right and the extreme right, which almost simultaneously they poured out their criticisms. At the meeting with JuntsxCat - according to sources consulted -, once the cameras left the room, he was later joined by the acting head of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños, another of the appointees for Sánchez to negotiate on his behalf and minister in charge of the Catalan portfolio in the last legislature.
The meeting, in which Nogueras – according to what she assured herself when it ended – delivered a transcript of the conference that Carles Puigdemont gave at the beginning of September, lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes. From JxCat they point out that it is the longest that Sánchez has maintained with the groups of the Congress these days.
However, nothing more came out of the content. "We want to focus on the fact that we are in a transcendent moment, in an extraordinary moment and we will not enter into the game of headlines and leaks", Nogueras concluded when asked how the amnesty negotiations are progressing . "That's why there are others", he finished later.
With these elements, the only key they give from the post-convergent formation is that they need "guarantees" that everything agreed is fulfilled in accordance with the history of breaches of the socialists in the past. "We will not agree to anything that does not have guarantees of compliance", insist sources from the training. For the agreement, Junts has demanded that there be a verifier to certify what is agreed and ensure compliance.
Be that as it may, amnesty is on the table and has already been verbalized by the socialists after several weeks as a taboo word. At Junts, however, they consider that this is not enough and, in addition to referring to progress in the negotiation for a referendum, they include other folders, such as the one referring to Catalan in the educational and institutional sphere - in this aside, there are tangible developments such as the community meeting on October 24 in which the official status of Catalan in the European Union will be debated once again - or the economic area, which could be linked to budget support if there is fulfillment Especially taking into account that the approval of an amnesty law will be at the mercy of the application of the judges and for some of those affected the entry into force may be delayed. This is the reason why there are voices from the post-convergent space who claim that it is necessary that there is something more in the basket than amnesty. But the truth is that Puigdemont is the only one who has the keys to the negotiation and who composes the score.
