The CUP piles pressure on JxCat and ERC for a Government that guarantees self-determination and a change in economic model

BarcelonaCUP is piling on the pressure on JxCat and ERC in the midst of negotiations to form a Government. The talks between the three pro-independence parties are still open, but the anti-capitalists CUP want specifics. They want to know to what extent ERC and Junts are willing to accept the proposals that they have put forward in social and national matters before deciding the direction of their vote. In fact, they have not discarded becoming part of the executive - an option, however, they admit themselves is unlikely. The measures are basically to set a shared roadmap to re-exercise the right to self-determination and to change the current economic model to respond to the crisis. For the moment, as explained by CUP MPs Dolors Sabater, Laia Estrada and Carles Riera at a political conference in Barcelona, they have not received any specific response from either ERC or JxCat. For that reason, Sabater has asked them for an "effort" to rise to the occasion and not to look at "what the parties need, but the country". "We are in a hurry," she added.

The anti-capitalists are decisive for ERC's candidate, Pere Aragonès, to be invested. However, in order to back him they want guarantees that the "mistakes" of the last government will not be repeated. CUP have put forward a social shock plan to combat the effects of the economic crisis that contains, among other measures, the promotion of a universal basic income, a halt to evictions, regulation of the price of rent and a move towards a fully public health model. "We are not asking for changes of nuance, but changes of model," warned Riera. "No social programme can be developed in the current political framework. The break with the Spanish state is inevitable," warned Estrada, who has also put forward a change in the police model.

The CUP believes that the "political collapse" that Catalonia is experiencing, in reference to the Catalan conflict and the legal proceedings against the pro-independence movement, can only be reversed by exercising the right to self-determination. And it insists that dialogue with the Spanish government will not lead to it. That is why they ask ERC and JxCat to leave their "comfort zone" and bet on "the charge" against the State through social mobilisation that opens a negotiation on an international scale. Thus, Riera has again rejected the dialogue table with the Spanish government and has demanded one between the different pro-independence actors to set the "shared" strategy to achieve independence. In this sense, Estrada reiterated that the CUP's commitment is to hold a referendum during this legislature (the anti-capitalists had set 2025 as a deadline).

The state of the negotiations

All these proposals, as explained by the three MPs, have been shared with JxCat and ERC without obtaining the response they would like. In fact, Estrada explained that they are working "basically" with ERC. "We are not finding it easy with JxCat. We sent the document and we are still waiting for a response," reproached the deputy. In the audience were JxCat MPs Josep Rius and Aurora Madaula, as well as ERC leaders Pere Aragonès and Marta Vilalta. Relations with Carles Puigdemont's party were damaged after the first phase of negotiations to constitute the Parliamentary Bureau. The anti-capitalists sought the Speakership but it was finally JxCat who ended up keeping it, choosing Laura Borràs in a vote in which the deputies of the CUP voted null. Despite maintaining more talks with ERC, the CUP believes the party has "too abstract a response". "We need courage and specifics," Estrada pressed on.

The contacts between the pro-independence forces continued yesterday with discretion. There is little more than a week before the first vote to invest Pere Aragonès, on March 26. So far there has been talk of strategy on the Independence bid -with the negotiating table as its epicentre and, as ARA advanced yesterday, the creation of a new strategic coordination body. Harder terrain now lies ahead: splitting the areas of government. Junts hopes to simply switch over, heading the departments hitherto under ERC, and viceversa. ERC, however, want to create more departments and continue to manage some of the more social ones.

However, this also has to fit in with the CUP's plans, which is still officially demanding to be taken into account in the negotiations to form a government. Although they are far from joining the executive -most sources assume that it will be rejected-, the anti-capitalists criticise that ERC and Junts already take for granted that they will not join and have begun to outline a two-way coalition government. "We do not approach the negotiations from a perspective of quotas of power. We want to take advantage, above all, of the condition that the ballot boxes have given us to condition and determine the formation of a government", defended Sabater, who warned that the CUP will not be anybody's "crutch".

The negotiation will be a tug of war against the clock to try to have a president elected in the Parliament in the first round. It will be parallel, then, to the round of contacts led by the president of the chamber, Laura Borràs, who will begin to meet with all parliamentary groups to define whether there is a candidate who might be voted in.