Catalan president meets coalition partners to discuss the government's continuity

BarcelonaThere are fifteen days left before the ultimatum Together for Catalonia (JxCat) gave its coalition partner Republican Left of Catalonia to redirect the course of the Government elapses, and negotiations to save the coalition are underway. This Wednesday, as reported by El Periódico and confirmed by the ARA, Catalan president Pere Aragonès (ERC) met with JxCat's president and secretary general, Laura Borràs and Jordi Turull, to discuss the coalition's continuity. On the table there are three proposals from JxCat: recovering meetings between parties and pro-independence organisations to weave together a unitary strategy; to coordinate parliamentary groups in the Spanish parliament; and making the negotiating table really about amnesty and self-determination. The deadline to reach a pact is the general policy debate –which begins on September 27–, since it is there that an eventual agreement between the two coalition partners can take shape in order to continue their joint path or, on the contrary, a definitive split will be revealed.

What could be the solution? Government sources point out that the path that would have more options of prospering is bringing back a joint strategic leadership of the Independence bid, given the distance between the two parties in the Spanish parliament and their disagreement over whether the Catalan delegation at the negotiating table should include politicians who are not part of the cabinet, as JxCat defends. Therefore, what seems more viable, for now, is to resume somehow the meetings that were held between pro-independence parties and organisations.

Wednesday's meeting was similar to the coordination meeting the two parties hold every Monday to address the most burning issues, but the fact that Aragonès and Borràs participated denotes the importance of the situation: it is a summit at the highest level at a critical time. The Catalonia Day demonstration has further distanced the two coalition partners: ERC declined to attend the demonstration because it directed "against parties and institutions", while JxCat went all out. The discrepancy between the partners was again evidenced in the Palau de la Generalitat: Aragonès rejected the Catalan National Assembly's proposal to unilaterally declare independence in the first half of 2023, while vice-president Jordi Puigneró (JxCat), in a different meeting, said he was open to "listen" to the proposal.