ERC and CUP meet in the first round of negotiations for the investiture

BarcelonaERC and the CUP have officially inaugurated the post-election negotiations with a bilateral meeting this Wednesday at noon. According to the two parties, it has been a first contact and the negotiating teams will meet again next week with the view fixed, in the first place, on the investiture of Pere Aragonès, which would have to be submitted to the vote of the Parliament before March 27. On ERC's side, those chosen to lead the negotiations are Sergi Sabrià, Marta Vilalta, Laura Vilagrà and Josep Maria Jové, all of them MPs. The CUP have also chosen four MPs for the negotiations: Carles Riera, Eulàlia Reguant, Pau Juvillà and Xavier Pellicer. The meeting finished with two communiqués with few specifics but with one coincidence: both parties believe that the pro-independence political movement has taken "a turn to the left".

Both Esquerra and the CUP have coincided in highlighting the advance of the pro-independence forces and also of the left in the Parliament, and it will be these two issues that they will prioritise when trying to weave an agreement that will necessarily have to be extended to other political forces. It is Pere Aragonès who has more options to find the support to be invested, taking into account the veto that the pro-independence parties have imposed on Salvador Illa (PSC). The will of the ERC presidential candidate is that the negotiations are extended to JxCat and also to En Comú Podem.

In this first meeting the two parties have analysed the electoral results, which they consider have reinforced their position. In ERC's case, they have become the first pro-independence force in Parliament for the first time -one seat ahead of JxCat-, while the CUP have more than doubled their seats, from four to nine deputies. After this first contact there is a joint vision that the two parties have reflected in the same way: they wanted to emphasise that the Independence bid is strengthened by the ideological axis of the left. "The political movement is growing on the left," ERC stressed in its communiqué. "The results of the last 14-F show a clear will of the population of a shift to the left," agreed the CUP. Now we will have to see if they agree on how to translate this shift to the formation and policies of the next Government.