María Jesús Cañizares 08/02/02
A tactical error that now tries to correct with a grievance memorial. Engaged in breaking ERC, Carles Puigdemont called to rebut the leaders of Junts per Catalunya in Brussels in order to prepare the meeting between Quim Torra and Pedro Sánchez. He did not gauge that the Spanish president would come with a very well prepared speech, both in the content –44 proposals that the PP government rejected in his day– and in the form – his dialogue attitude dismantled the image of a Francoist and demophobic Spain.
Aware that the socialist leader, without making concessions to the independence claims, won the battle of the image, the hard faction of Puigdemont have ordered the counterattack with an act of neo-convergent reaffirmation to be held today at the Born Cultural Center – Puigdemont himself will intervene – and the preparations of the bilateral commission focused on breaches, grievances and historical deficits towards Catalonia.
“More skilled than Zapatero”
Even sectors of the PP that, together with Citizens, intended to use the summit of both presidents to lash out against Sánchez’s alleged submission to independence, recognize that Sánchez “is more skilled than Zapatero. The current president promises little. Therefore, it has more capacity not to disappoint. ”
The most intransigent pro-independentist movement is in full hangover after the meeting held on Thursday between the two presidents, without incident on the streets, despite the fact that Tsunami Democràtic and the CDR had threatened to boycott the visit of the Spanish president. This date resulted in the commitment to hold a bilateral State-Generalitat commission and the dialogue table this February.
Erosion of JxCat to ERC
JuntsxCat and ERC dispute the leadership of that table, which must address the ways of solving the “political conflict” that the Government, at the request of the Republicans, recognizes that there are in Catalonia.
Thus, while Torra and Puigdemont try to relegate the Republicans in that forum of presidents, the Spanish executive entrusts himself to the final ruling of the criminal chamber of the Supreme Court against Torra to suspend, at least, the subsequent work meetings that happen at first. Meetings doomed to fail, as JxCat will underline as a pre-election erosion of its still ERC partners in the Government.
Neoconvergent reaffirmation act
In other words, the neoconvergents will intensify their harassment in the coming days and bring down “an empty dialogue”, piloted by Puigdemont, who today will stage that leadership in a political act called “A Punt” organized by JxCAT and to be held in El Born Center of Culture and Memory of Barcelona. Elected positions and members of the Government, President Torra and Puigdemont himself, who will intervene by videoconference will attend.
Torra already tried yesterday to recover the lost ground in Thursday’s meeting by commissioning the Minister of Foreign Action, Transparency and Institutional Relations, Alfred Bosch, to convene the Generalitat-State bilateral commission as soon as possible. But the guidelines given by the president show the willingness to follow the path of confrontation, because he wants to deal with “historical breaches, grievances and deficits towards Catalonia”.
Grievance Memorial
It is clear, therefore, that before the inability to react to the 44 proposals of Sanchez, the hard faction of Puigdemont will attack with a memorial of grievances with which to dynamit that sectorial meeting, while in the dialogue table, the neoconvergents insist on posing the right to self-determination, the amnesty of prisoners and the need for a mediator.
All this was rejected by the socialist president on his Catalan journey, who, according to sovereign sources admit, dismantled the idea that the Government “is a wall with which one cannot speak. Who can assure, after seeing Sánchez, that Spain is a dictatorship, that it maintains Francoist attitudes? ”If the world looks at us”, as the independentists use to say, it also looks at Sánchez’s behavior to analyze it.
“Sanchez arrived with the homework done”
Independentist radicalism facing a president who keeps the dialogue? The same sources recognize that, at least, “the leader of the PSOE arrived at the Palau with the homework done, but not Torra.” It is precisely that image, that of a renewed and more reasonable executive than his predecessors of the PP, is the one that Puigdemont tried to avoid, since he dynamited his propaganda against the “oppressive State”. Since his escape and subsequent debut as a parliamentarian, Puigdemont has dedicated himself to disseminating the image of a demophobic Spain that does not correspond to what happened on Thursday.
How the meeting between Sánchez and Torra should be dealt with was the meeting that the parliamentary group held in Brussels with that of Girona last Monday. The main slogan, according to knowledgeable sources of the meeting was to prevent ERC from taking the revenues of that dialogue table. But they did not delve into how to anticipate the socialist’s offer, which has revealed itself as a huge tactical error. An offer of 44 points that, in fact, adhered to the strictly autonomous channels.
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