Although according to what was agreed and what was said in public until now, the first meeting of the negotiation space agreed upon by the PSOE and Junts per Catalunya with the international verification mechanism was to be held before the end of November, this meeting will take place in Geneva ( Switzerland) on Saturday, December 2, "after squaring up the agendas of both parties," according to negotiation sources.
In any case, the post-convergents maintain the intention of not talking about those meetings and that they work in that forum with discretion. The only thing they have said is that former president Carles Puigdemont will lead the JxCat delegation, which will also include the general secretary of the party, Jordi Turull. It is also known that from the outset they will request the holding of a referendum on independence through article 92 of the Constitution and, on the economic side, that Catalonia be excluded from the Organic Law of Financing of the Autonomous Communities (Lofca). The intention of Junts is to agree on a unique financing mechanism in such a way that the Generalitat, through the Agència Tributària de Catalunya, can collect 100% of the taxes.
Likewise, in Turull's training they downplayed the calendar this week. Sources consulted indicated that there was no anger and that there is no difference between holding the meeting on Thursday, Friday or Saturday.
On the part of the PSOE, it will be Ferraz's organizational secretary, Santos Cerdán, who will lead the negotiating delegation, as confirmed by Sánchez himself, and the attendance of his right-hand man, Juan Francisco Serrano, who also participated in the negotiations for the investiture
Despite confirming this first meeting next Saturday in Geneva, the socialists also defend that these negotiations take place with the utmost discretion, and that they only reach the citizens when progress is made in the talks. The details of the verification mechanism have not emerged either, but both Turull, general secretary of Junts, and the party's spokesperson in the Senate, Josep Lluís Cleries, have revealed in recent weeks that this institution has already helped reach the agreement to the re-election of Pedro Sánchez.
JxCat comes to that negotiation table with prior internal work. The dialogue with the PSOE will be carried out by a small group of leaders, but the training includes advice from other people specialized in various fields, such as the economy, for example. Depending on the subjects that have to be addressed, opinions will be sought from one or another, even from people not affiliated with the training if necessary.
“Verification, between political parties that start from such distant positions, can help,” Sánchez conceded about the intermediation agreed upon in his investiture pact to open the negotiation with Junts. In an informal conversation with the press during his recent tour of the Middle East last week, the President of the Government recognized for the first time the positive work that in his opinion the figure of the verifier agreed between the PSOE and the Carles party can play. Puigdemont.
Sánchez, in the same line as those expressed by JxCat, admitted that there is “great mistrust” between his organization and Junts, so this intermediary agreed between both parties can be beneficial to be able to consolidate, during the course of the new legislature , a relationship that was very damaged after the process.
Regarding the agreements that allowed the investiture pact with Junts, and particularly the future amnesty law that has unleashed a harsh offensive from the right, Sánchez insisted that they are already public, and it can thus be verified that they do not go beyond the constitutional framework. “I guarantee that we will always comply with the Constitution,” he stressed.
The head of the Executive insisted on defending his agenda of dialogue, negotiation and agreement with the Catalan independence groups. “We have to aspire to solve the problem of Catalonia,” he claimed. “Although it is very difficult, today the situation is much better in Catalonia,” he assured. And he recognized that his commitment to this avenue of dialogue is even giving him electoral returns. “They said it penalized us, and we have a million more votes,” he said, alluding to the results that the socialists achieved in the general elections.
In addition, Sánchez ruled out that the fiery debate on the amnesty for those accused of the process could imply wear and tear for the newly formed central Executive. “We have four years ahead of us,” he assured. “Today no one reproaches me for the pardons,” he added, in reference to the pardons he granted in the last legislature to imprisoned pro-independence leaders.
“One of our obligations is to establish normality in Catalonia, and in the end we are all going to benefit,” the president continued about an amnesty that, he implied, will also make things easier in the future for the Popular Party. “There are debates that have their intensity, but in the end it will be good for politics,” he justified.
In another order of things, what is evident is that this forum will meet before the reactivation of the dialogue table between the Government and the Generalitat. From Esquerra Republicana, however, they downplayed the issue and assured on Monday in the press conference after the executive meeting that they have already spoken with the socialists every week for more than three years.
"We have had weekly meetings for three and a half years and they continue to be held. These days the meetings, which can be in different formats, have intensified," said the spokesperson for the group, Raquel Sans. "There will be media focus if there is something to announce," she concluded.
