The political course that begins after the holiday break is crucial for Junts, both because of the possible return of its leader, former president Carles Puigdemont, and because of the 2027 municipal elections, in which the party wants to build a firewall against Aliança Catalana, whom polls predict will see significant growth in the next electoral cycle.
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That said, within the post-convergent organization there are more questions than answers right now, a scenario that affects the general morale of the group and fuels all kinds of speculations and even rumors about holding an extraordinary congress that the leadership denies.
Among the middle ranks there are nerves about the polls and rumors of a congress that the leadership denies
In this context, the former president, who is keeping his cards close and has not yet revealed what role he will have if amnesty is applied, will meet next week with the JxCat leaders he trusts most to prepare the new political course, in which, on paper, if nothing goes wrong, this time he will be able to return to Catalonia.
Other issues will also be addressed at that meeting, such as what the general strategy should be at a complicated moment when there are nerves among the middle ranks due to the poor forecasts that polls have been showing for months, especially ahead of new elections to the Parliament, but also with a view to local elections.
As much as the party stresses that it does not comment on polls, that its rivals are overrepresented in the samples, or that they always come back at the ballot box, JxCat is aware that a dangerous trend is consolidating for the party’s future and the message is sinking in that the formation of Sílvia Orriols, which today barely has two deputies in the Catalan Chamber, could overtake them. At the last national council meeting, the secretary general, Jordi Turull, already called to “turn around” this situation.
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That said, in these weeks of information blackout, the JxCat rumor mills, far from taking a break, have been full of rumors, including one about holding a new congress before the municipal elections to boost the party, a scenario that is not ruled out if the former president returns, but which today is not on the table and about which mayors do not want to hear before the elections. This feeling of unease and this turmoil is also contributed to by the fact that the former president has been away from the spotlight for months and has not revealed whether he will run again as a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat.
The truth is that at the peaceful Calella conclave, held in October 2024, one of the most repeated phrases was that it was a “transitional congress,” due to the provisional situation the party still lives in today. Also, in these six years of JxCat’s existence, there have been congresses every two years and, after the founding one, the other two have been extraordinary, so it would not be such a strange scenario.
Added to this is the fact that Junts has been making agreements with actors from the convergent diaspora who did not join Puigdemont’s project initially, in 2020, and that names from the old Convergència are in JxCat’s orbit and on everyone’s lips. A source familiar with JxCat’s internal movements said a few weeks ago that “it is obvious” that things “are happening and have to happen” in the party, in light of agreements with actors such as the Partit Nacionalista de Catalunya of former PDECat general coordinator Marta Pascal, or the entente with Convergents, the extra-parliamentary formation of former minister Germà Gordó, as well as other local leaders.
In any case, looking ahead to the new course, Turull already announced that JxCat will again register in Congress the law it agreed with the PSOE in 2025 to transfer immigration powers to the Generalitat, a matter that the plenary rejected a year ago due to the opposition of PP, Vox, and Podemos. After the regularization approved by the Government, the purple formation opened the door to changing its mind if the preamble is changed. Following the Ceuta migration crisis, Junts put this issue back on the table and stressed that it will oppose Catalonia hosting unaccompanied minors.
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