"Catalonia has opened a new path of progress, understanding and coexistence", Pedro Sánchez celebrated yesterday on the occasion of the Day. "It is time to look to the future and continue to move forward", said the acting president of the Spanish Government and leader of the PSOE, on the occasion of the complex open negotiations with Junts and Esquerra that will determine his new investiture or a repetition of the general elections
The executive of the PSOE, which yesterday met in Ferraz without the presence of Sánchez, defended in this sense that, despite the fact that it is "at the antipodes" of the last pronouncements of Carles Puigdemont and Pere Aragonès, there is room for the OK. "There is room for dialogue and meeting within the constitutional limits", stressed Minister María Jesús Montero, deputy general secretary of the PSOE.
However, Montero warned that both Puigdemont and Aragonès take their "maximum positions" as a starting point for negotiations. And above all in the context of a Day and a commemoration of the 1-O in which independence stages all its "liturgy and paraphernalia", according to Ferraz.
Montero warned, in any case, that "the limits of the PSOE are well known to the pro-independence parties". They are nothing new: "Any settlement of the conflict in Catalonia requires constitutional settlement", reiterated the socialist leader, who did not want to reveal a single word of the ongoing talks with Junts and ERC. He did not assume, but also did not rule out, a future amnesty law, and alleged the absolute need for "discretion, caution, prudence and stealth" so that it does not derail the open dialogue path before being able to reach a agreement that guarantees Sánchez's investiture.
The deputy general secretary of the PSOE did assure that this Day is the best occasion to "claim coexistence and reunion". "We are in favor of building bridges and not digging trenches", assured Montero, to advance on the path of dialogue. And with reference to the position of the Popular Party and the extreme right of Vox, "flee from these attitudes and behaviors that frighten any approach and attempt to find a dialogic solution to the serious incidents that took place in Catalonia" in 2017.
Montero assured that the PSOE "will continue its discreet conversations" with independence. Although he insisted that these negotiations will remain under the radar until it is ascertained whether the agreement is possible or not. Despite the fact that Sánchez himself trusted that there will be white smoke for his investiture, Ferraz assumes the complexity of the company: "It's not easy and we don't have enough", they admit. But no one is throwing in the towel, at least for now.
The recent admonitions against an amnesty for those accused in the process by Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra, among other socialist veterans of more or less reference still within the party, do not, in any case, move Ferraz. Proof of this, they point out, is that this matter was not discussed at the executive meeting yesterday. Montero then naturally assumed the existence of these "dissonant voices" among the ranks of a "diverse and plural" party. But the Sevillian leader also responded, ironically paraphrasing her countryman Alfonso Guerra, these ex-leaders: "In this PSOE, what moves does appear in the picture". It should be remembered that it was the former vice-president of the Spanish government and former vice-general secretary of the PSOE who, during his term, warned against internal differences in the organization: "What moves does not appear in the picture".
Despite the critical voices, Montero assured that the leadership of the PSOE feels with the full support of the socialist militancy on the occasion of the new investiture attempt: "Pedro Sánchez knows that he has the whole party behind him".
