“This can only be unlocked from Catalonia,” Alberto Núñez Feijóo told Josep Sánchez-Llibre, the president of the large Catalan employers’ association Foment del Treball, after his speech at the annual conference of the Cercle d’Economia. That phrase, directed at whom it was directed, was full of intent. Sánchez-Llibre is one of the few representatives of Catalan civil society with notable interlocution and capacity for influence over the leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont. So Feijóo was seeking help to convince the former president of the convenience of favoring a motion of no confidence that would unseat Pedro Sánchez. Both the socialist and the popular leader sent messages to Waterloo, but in very different tones and content. Junts has made it clear from the beginning that their votes are in exchange for demands, so it’s about knowing what Sánchez and Feijóo offer to potential allies. Well, both have made it quite clear this week in Barcelona.
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The PP leader began by confessing to the businessmen present that some of them had insistently suggested that he make gestures towards Catalonia’s concerns, that he be more receptive to its demands, for example, regarding regional financing. Feijóo already told them that he did not intend to heed these “suggestions.” He told them that he could not act “as if nothing were happening” in Spain, referring to the alleged corruption cases plaguing the government. For Feijóo, the important thing now is to oust the current government and restore “decency.” It could be when there are elections, but it could be sooner with a motion of no confidence for which he needs the PNV and Junts. But that same Tuesday morning, the PP woke up to Junts’ response through Jordi Turull, who told Feijóo that if he wants their votes, he should go negotiate them in Waterloo.
It’s not mere rhetoric. As long as Puigdemont is in Belgium, if the PP wants Junts’ support, it will have to send someone with sufficient representation in the party to negotiate the conditions. This is, no more and no less, what Sánchez had to do to achieve his last investiture as president. Feijóo could try to achieve alliances with Catalan society to try to convince Puigdemont, although the latter has shown ample evidence of being little malleable to pressure. That was probably the intention of the message the popular leader sent to Sánchez-Llibre. But beyond that phrase, Feijóo gained little from the businessmen present with his intervention, especially when he made it clear that a new regional financing, if he governs, will not be as beneficial for Catalonia as the one presented by the current government. Moreover, he implied that the Community of Madrid also contributes a lot to the common fund and complains less, in addition to urging the Generalitat to moderate certain expenses.
Feijóo cannot court Junts because Vox would charge him in votes
“I don’t come to ask for favors, nor to give them away.” This is how he referred to Junts. In other words, he doesn’t beg for their votes. If they join, fine; if not, too bad for them, as they will end up in extinction, he implied at a previous breakfast with the board of the Cercle d’Economia. The PP is convinced that supporting Sánchez will take an electoral toll on Junts and the PNV, and that the popular party will reap the rewards in Catalonia and the Basque Country. “I’m not looking for shortcuts,” he stressed. In any case, he reminded Junts that they vote together on many issues in the Senate: housing occupations, regularization of immigrants, extension of the life of nuclear power plants, tax cuts… that it’s easy to agree on those things, but that he will not negotiate compensations as the PSOE did at the time regarding the amnesty.
The issue is that with an agenda limited to purely economic matters, Feijóo will find it difficult to reach an agreement with a party like Junts. He wouldn’t even have achieved it with Convergència, despite showing his nostalgia for how well he understood Jordi Pujol’s formation. That is tantamount to forgetting that CDC was nationalist and Junts, pro-independence. The PP leader began his intervention by warning that he would talk about the “elephant in the room,” which is supposedly political degradation as a consequence of corruption and, therefore, the need to first address how to end it. But the territorial issue is also the elephant in the room. It is what allowed Sánchez to reach La Moncloa through a motion of no confidence and what now prevents Feijóo from doing so. The PP leader could reach an understanding with Junts, as Aznar did with Convergència in his day. At least he could court Puigdemont’s party, but the need to count on Vox to form majorities both in regional governments and, probably, in Congress, prevents the PP from shifting towards true positions of understanding with Catalan and Basque nationalists and pro-independence parties. What would happen if Feijóo sent someone from his team to talk to Puigdemont? Vox would exploit it to exhaustion.
That’s why it’s easier for Sánchez to present himself to Catalan business leaders at each edition of the Cercle d’Economia. It’s a forum that, in theory, should understand a party like the PP better than the PSOE, but yesterday the entity’s president, Teresa García-Milà, had to express her greater agreement with the government on the regularization of immigrants and on regional financing. The businessmen present are eager for Feijóo to give them reasons to be enthusiastic about a change of government, but the elephant in the room, the territorial issue, complicates it. So the socialist leader, with what is happening to his party and its surroundings, takes advantage of it and yesterday sent two messages: first, he intends to continue without calling early elections. He did so indirectly by announcing that he will present his budget project and take it to Congress in the second half of the year. And second, he is willing to resume negotiations with Junts on the “political conflict.” He said it that way, “political conflict,” on a couple of occasions.
The president claimed the amnesty in Catalonia almost as his own idea
It was at the Cercle d’Economia where Sánchez once announced that he would approve pardons for the leaders of the procés, with the support of businessmen. Yesterday, what the president did was tempt Junts (and ERC). It would involve completing the first phase of dialogue with the application of the amnesty law, which the government expects to be unblocked before the new parliamentary session begins in September, and which the president claimed almost as if it had been his own idea. When Carles Puigdemont is back in Catalonia and Oriol Junqueras is no longer disqualified, Sánchez proposes opening a new phase to continue discussing the “political conflict” from 2027 onwards. In return, he demands “an effort of generosity” to approve the budgets, which would significantly strengthen his position at a time of clear weakness. Because the judicial cases threatening the PSOE leader are more manageable if he has a parliamentary majority, something that does not exist now, since the PNV and Junts have put on the table the need to call elections.
In short, this week Junts put a ball on Feijóo’s roof and he kicked it out of the field, while Sánchez yesterday threw the ball to Waterloo and now we will see how Puigdemont responds. It is true that the leader of Junts is always very distrustful of the PSOE’s proposals and also that Sánchez’s gesture was just a wink without further commitment. Each one has their elephant in the room.
