The options that Pedro Sánchez will be invested as president of the central government this week are receding. Both the PSOE and Junts cool down the possibility of an imminent pact, as expected a few days ago. However, the negotiation continues and the exchange of documents and proposals in the midst of judicial pressure through multiple channels and the protests that the right calls every night in front of its socialists. Ingredients that add tension to conversations that are already complex enough.
Those of Carles Puigdemont want to ensure that the amnesty law has guarantees in its application, that it is shielded against the interpretation of the judiciary and that it gives cover to the causes that they consider lawfare - use of justice for political purposes - and that they are related to the process even if they are not directly linked to the 9-N consultation or the 1-O referendum. However, this section also includes the situation of Puigdemont's lawyer, Gonzalo Boye , whose pending trial in the National Court has to do with the period in which he defended the Galician drug trafficker Sito Miñanco. The criminal will sit in the dock for alleged money laundering and document falsification, for events prior to 1-O.
The other cases that are put on the table as a paradigm of lawfare have a closer relationship with the process, as is the case of the historian Josep Lluís Alay, head of the office of the former president of Puigdemont, or of the former councilor Miquel Buch, convicted a few weeks ago together with a Mossos d'Esquadra agent, Lluís Escolà, for escorting the now MEP.
Although contacts between the parties have not ceased since Monday, socialist sources located in Brussels yesterday lowered expectations of reaching an agreement in time to hold the investiture debate this week.
The PSOE and Junts agree that they need more time to negotiate the technical details of the amnesty law. The relevance of this legislation, insist negotiation sources, forces us to work with rigor and to do a good job. The legal deadline for electing the president of the central government is November 27, sources say.
For now, however, the number three of the PSOE, Santos Cerdán, remains in the Belgian capital, in a hotel in the European quarter. There is also the post-convergent general secretary, Jordi Turull, the leader of the formation in Madrid, Míriam Nogueras, and the president of the party, Laura Borràs.
From Junts, at the same time, they maintain uncertainty and avoid setting deadlines for the pact after it was said in the previous days that it was imminent. "The best thing for the negotiation is that there is no noise and that there is discretion", insist the consulted sources, who transfer the pressure to the socialists. "The pressure is on them", point out the sources, who also vindicate the work that is being done in contrast to the pact of Esquerra with the socialists. "There is still time, we are doing what ERC has not done", they conclude.
In Madrid, the acting Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, pointed out to the Senate that "negotiations are progressing" and that they are working "non-stop every day" and "with the desire to already have a government". However, the acting minister, Isabel Rodríguez, when assessing the situation of the judges' governing body - expired five years ago - and pointing out that it would be necessary to renew it this legislature, let it go: "If it continues proceed with the investiture and there is a new government". A caution that was not appreciated in previous appearances. In addition, he described it as "unheard of" that the conservatives of the Judiciary approved a statement about a law - the amnesty - whose content they do not know.
Rodríguez was more cautious, referring to the interlocutory hearing of the National Court charging Puigdemont with the crime of terrorism for the Democratic Tsunami protests. Although he expressed "absolute respect" for the judicial decisions, he did say that the resolution comes "after four years". In the socialist executive, which does not have the need to maintain the same decorum as the central government, there were clearer criticisms, such as those of Manuela Villa Acosta, who opined that they are "judges doing politics".
