Antoni Bassas' analysis: 'Puigdemont's pending issues'

Early morning images, taken by Catalunya Ràdio journalist Jordi Corbalán. Carles Puigdemont arrives at a room in Perpignan where, at the time I'm speaking to you, the executive committee of Junts is meeting. The president-in-exile arrives amid the expectation of the Catalan and Spanish media, because if what everyone takes for granted, the break with the PSOE, is confirmed, Pedro Sánchez's term in office will become even more complicated, and his status as a survivor will once again be put to the test.

The Junts executive is meeting in PerpignanIt is the body that will formally make a decision that has already been made, because the core of the party's leadership met yesterday, and because what Carles Puigdemont thinks weighs decisively within Junts. And Puigdemont's patience, who this week will mark eight years since he left Catalonia, has run out. The human factor weighs heavily. The amnesty has not arrived, immigration powers have not been delegated to the Generalitat, and Catalan is not an official language in the EU. Of course, the Spanish-German statement last Friday stating that Madrid and Berlin have opened bilateral talks has not softened Puigdemont's position in the least. In short, everything leads us back to the rupture that Puigdemont already hinted at in August at Prada de Conflent, when he predicted that This fall things would happen that have never happened before.

We won't know what breaking with the PSOE means until 5:00 p.m., when Puigdemont will appear at a press conference. It's assumed that Junts won't vote for Feijóo as president, that it's unlikely to support a vote of no confidence against a candidate who would act as a bridge, for a few months, between a fallen Sánchez and the next elections, and that the membership will have to ratify whatever is decided today.

What does "break" mean? We've all said and repeated that Junts will make Sánchez lose every vote, starting with the fact that he won't be able to approve the budget for next year. It could also be that Junts will try to place the responsibility for the end of the term on Sánchez himself: giving him a deadline to reach certain agreements and, if that doesn't happen, making it clear who thwarted the Brussels agreements that led Junts to inaugurate Sánchez two years ago.

An important voice speaking out on the issue this morning was Salvador Illa. The president of the Generalitat has been interviewed by Gemma Nierga, and they would never say what he asked Junts for. Let them be sensible:

"The alternative to a Pedro Sánchez government is an alternative, I say this with all due respect but with all the clarity of regression, of going backwards, of regressive, right? The government is fulfilling its commitments, from my point of view, all of them: there is an amnesty law approved and validated in Catalan; immigration; the government has been in favor of the management of powers by Catalonia.

A flat rant about Spanish politics: who allowed the PP and Vox to come to power? Illa suggested today that it could be Junts, depending on what they decided in Perpignan. Junts believes the PSOE hasn't done everything in its power to secure the agreements, and it's possible that Fomento (Ministry of Public Works) and PIMEC (Pymec), which have had a channel of influence through Junts on Sánchez's laws, have seen that this channel is no longer capable of giving them any more, and are no longer asking Junts to endure the relationship with Sánchez.

Junts has clashed with the PSOE, always lazy when it comes to fulfilling agreements (something similar is happening with the financing pacts with Esquerra), and with the State, especially the judges, determined to see Puigdemont in prison. Perhaps it will take time before we see such favorable arithmetic conditions for the influence of Junts and also Esquerra in the Spanish government. Or maybe they never were and just seemed that way.

Good morning.