Antoni Bassas' analysis: 'Esquerra i Junts, stuck with the PSOE'

This morning brought us an announcement: Pere Aragonès is leaving politics. He announced that He will give up his former president's salary and will work for his family's company., who is known to have businesses related to tourism, and will begin teaching at the University of Vic.

Aragonès is 42 years old, has young children, and what we would call a long professional life ahead of him. After reaching the top, the presidency of the Generalitat (Catalan government), he had little incentive to continue in politics, much less in an ERC led by Oriol Junqueras, with whom he clearly disagreed at the party congress, where Aragonès voted in favor of Xavier Godàs's candidacy. Remember that Aragonès made a move that backfired when the elections came early: ERC lost 13 seats, and that failure showed him the way out.

And while Spanish politics continues to be absorbed by the PSOE-PP fight over the Israeli massacre in Gaza, it is clear that Esquerra and Junts are failing to enforce their agreements with the PSOE.. They are stuck.

The Treasury doesn't accept Esquerra's proposal for collecting personal income tax, not even an element as basic as the principle of ordinality (so basic that even the PSC has adopted it), and the PSOE simply says that the autonomous communities must have "financial sufficiency." This is the well-known farce: pacts are signed in exchange for investitures that later lapse because, oh, what you're asking for is very difficult to obtain. In the case of this financing agreement, moreover, the timing isn't conducive. Vice President Maria Jesús Montero will be the candidate for the presidency of Andalusia in next year's elections, and anything that can be presented as a privilege for Catalonia will be used against her. And consider that the latest polls place the PSOE in Andalusia below its worst result ever.

But if ERC doesn't win, neither will Junts. This summer, Carles Puigdemont said that "things will happen in the fall that haven't happened until now," and that was the slogan repeated yesterday after the meeting of Junts parliamentarians with Puigdemont in Belgium. Catalan is not officially recognized in Europe, nor is there a transfer of immigration, and the amnesty is not yet complete. Furthermore, although Junts is his group in the Parliament, their votes are relatively irrelevant to the PSC-Esquerra-Comuns majority. Now Junts announces that it wants Isla to adhere to the agreements Junts has with Sánchez..

In the background, Esquerra and Junts are migrating between the independence creed and the reality of a pact with the Spanish government, with the addition, especially for Esquerra for reasons of ideological proximity, that overthrowing Sánchez's government to bring in the PP and Vox is not the most desirable thing for their interests, precisely.

Left and Together are stranded and we are stuck with the symbols by legal imperative. As in theGirona City Hall, where they had to hang the portrait of King Felipe de Borbón.

The portrait was created based on photos of police charges during the October 1, 2017, referendum. It was imaginative, but repetitive. In a word, stuck.

Good morning.