The President of Catalonia Aragonès pounds the table: his JxCat government partners try to boycott the dialogue table from the outset

Joan Tapia, President of the Editorial Committee of EL PERIÓDICO.
September 15, 2021

Pere Aragonès, at his appearance at the Generalitat. /
FERRAN NADEU

JxCat has tried to boycott the meeting of the negotiating table by electing delegates who, against the will of the ‘president’, were not ‘regional ministers’

Yesterday I said that the negotiating table between the Catalan and Spanish governments, the result of the pact that facilitated the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez after the last legislative sessions (ERC abstained), was going to run into many obstacles. And the first would not be the main one – the difficult approximation between secessionism and constitutionalism – but the growing divergences within the independence movement that have once again been highlighted on 9/11.

ERC believes that the negotiation and dialogue table is, from the outset, an asset. It is the tacit recognition of the Spanish Government that there is a political conflict in Catalonia. And the attitude of secessionism at the table can be a good calling card, different from the breakdown of 2017, before the European democracies. Only through negotiation, and obtaining more qualified majorities – ERC says – will the independence movement be heard in Europe. And he could add that this is the reason why the Spanish right revolts against the table and against Pedro Sánchez.

For their part, the PSOE and the PSC believe that only from the legality, but dialoguing and highlighting the aspirations of a non-separatist Catalonia, as important as the other, the independence movement can cease to become a permanent source of conflict, admit reality and progressively assume the rule of law. Pedro Sánchez explained his strategy on Tuesday on TVE: let’s talk, first, about the issues on which there may be agreement.

Of course, between Aragonès -amnesty and referendum- and Sánchez -all within the Constitution- the dialogue can only be harsh. Maybe rude. But always better than the sterilizing shock of recent years.

But the first crisis of the table that will meet today in Barcelona has exploded within the independence movement. JxCat has never hidden that it swallowed it because it was an ERC condition for the coalition government, but that it does not believe that it will lead to anything and that it is inconvenient because it deflates the independence mobilization. Laura Borràs always repeats it. And this attitude was reinforced on 9/11 by the maximalism of an National Catalan Assemby-ANC that, although with evident less force, demanded that Aragonès declare independence now.

That was the known and expected framework. The surprise is that JxCat has tried to boycott the first meeting of the table from the outset. That is why it communicated – without prior agreement and minutes before the Government met – that its delegates at the table would be the vice president Puigneró, the general secretary of JxCat, Jordi Sànchez, the former ‘councilor’ Jordi Turull and puigdemontist deputy Míriam Nogueras . It was to ignore the will of Aragonès that he wanted – to give relevance to the table – to be made up only of members of the two executives. In addition, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Turull, pardoned after the Supreme Court’s conviction, were an additional problem because ERC had already renounced the presence of Oriol Junqueras. The objective was clear: to entangle and to put obstacles.