This Thursday the first vote of the legislature will take place and due to the distribution of forces that abandoned the elections of July 23, the election of the members of the Bureau of the Congress of Deputies will be loaded with more importance than on all occasions previous. This is the litmus test of the coalition government that Pedro Sánchez, at the command of the PSOE, and Yolanda Díaz, leader of Sumar, aspire to reissue, although all eyes are on the seven representatives of Junts per Catalunya, who hours away Having to deposit their paper in the ballot box, they have not made public what the meaning of their vote will be, despite the fact that the Socialists have sought to harm a wink with the election of the former president of the Balearic Islands, Francina Armengol, as a candidate to preside over the Table.
The independence party put two conditions on the table to offer its support to Sánchez in a possible investiture, the amnesty of those who are called political prisoners and the commitment that a self-determination referendum will be held in Catalonia, which is also reflected in a new Estat ut A price that is too expensive for the Socialists, who have tried to differentiate the negotiation of the Table from that of the possible investiture and open the ban on the reform of the regional financing system through María Jesús Montero to promote an agreement with the catalans. Its update has been pending since 2014, but the attempts carried out in the last legislatures have been unsuccessful due to the lack of agreement between the central government and the autonomous communities.
However, they consider that the offer was insufficient and called for measures to reduce the deficit in Catalonia, a demand that was also joined by Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya on election night itself. Specifically, the requirement referred to the loans from the Autonomous Liquidity Funds granted to the different territories since 2012 and which, in the Catalan case, accumulate a debt of more than 60,000 million euros. This would not be a lower price for the Socialists to maintain control of the Congress Table, although their negotiators seek to transfer them to the possible economic level, since they are aware that the negotiation for the investiture will delve into the territorial scheme .
Puigdemont marks distances until the last moment
Carles Puigdemont distanced himself from the Socialists this Wednesday by pointing out in a post on social networks that “his position has not changed, no matter how much pressure and last-minute sliders there are, and some insult that gets out of control. That is to say: we don’t have any confidence in the Spanish political parties, all precaution is little and promises do not warm or cool us”, he reproached just 24 hours before the vote took place. The representatives of Junts seem determined not to leave aside the issues that they believe contribute to advancing the creation of an independent state in the talks for the Table and have opted to maintain uncertainty until the last minute.
“The table of Congress, for us, is not going to have a position within, nor is it about the investiture. We cannot advance nationally based on promises made by those who always break them, so verifiable facts are necessary before committing any vote. .
The votes of the seven Junts deputies are essential, which is why the representatives of Sumar are also carrying out a parallel negotiation, in which Yolanda Díaz and Jaume Asens would be present, as the leader of the left-wing coalition explained on Wednesday. However, this platform has chosen -at least in public- to wink at the cultural level. Sumar has assumed as its own the modification of the regulations of both chambers so that the different deputies and senators can use the co-official languages in their explosions. A strategy to which the Socialists have also wanted to join, who have promised to do the same in the European institutions.
In addition, the two parties that aspire to re-edit the coalition government play with another strictly parliamentary trick. Both ERC and Junts have expressed their willingness to form their own parliamentary group in the Congress of Deputies, however, none of them meets the requirements set out in the Regulations for this. There are two ways: have 15 deputies or have five with at least 5% of the votes at the national level or 15% of the provinces in which the list has competed, although the two Catalan formations do not meet any of them. However, the regulations grant the Presidency of the Table the ability to interpret these criteria and although it cannot fail to comply with them, the Constitutional Court admitted the option of “lend” deputies from another group, such as that of the PSOE.
