Junqueras avoids clash with Rufián and asks for "coordination" in the Madrid group

Barcelona / MadridIn the midst of a conflict with Gabriel Rufián, Oriol Junqueras met with the parliamentary group in Madrid this Wednesday. The meeting lasted about two hours and, according to consulted sources, the open battle within the parliamentary group in Madrid due to the lack of harmony between the Republican spokesperson and the majority of his party colleagues was not brought up. The leadership shared the party's strategy for the end of the Spanish legislature with the parliamentary group. However, as the party explained in a statement, Junqueras also asked the deputies for "coordination" to face "the challenges" of this legislature. Thus, he conveyed to them the "need to face this stage with the utmost demand, determination, and coordination". "The decisions that will have to be made in the coming months will be decisive in guaranteeing more resources, more decision-making power, and more well-being for the country as a whole," adds the party. Until now, the leadership had prescribed patience to the parliamentary group in Madrid.

The left-wing front defended by ERC's spokesperson has aggravated a conflict that has been ongoing within the parliamentary group for some time and has now also extended to the rest of the leadership, as they do not share the proposal of their spokesperson in Madrid. In fact, they have slammed the door shut on it several times. Despite all this, Rufián continues to defend it publicly because he considers it the only way to curb the rise of the right and far-right predicted by polls. For the moment, however, he has not only received the rejection from Oriol Junqueras's leadership, but also from the rest of the sovereignist formations.

In February, Rufián explained his sovereignist left-wing front with Emilio Delgado, from Més Madrid, at an event in the Spanish capital, and in April he also presented it in Barcelona, where he shared the stage with Podemos leader Irene Montero. In fact, the purple party is the only one that has opened the door to discussing this left-wing front that Rufián is proposing. This Friday, the Republican leader will hold an event in Valencia with who could be Compromís's candidate for the city council of the capital of the Valencian Community. 

It is not the first time that Oriol Junqueras meets with the parliamentary group in Madrid, but he does not do so periodically either. In fact, the last time he went was on February 18, the week in which Gabriel Rufián starred in the event with Emilio Delgado. Junqueras did not go to the event. That week the republican leader also took the opportunity to meet with the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, in full negotiations with the socialists about whether they would enter to negotiate the Catalan budgets in exchange for the transfer of IRPF collection.

The Spanish legislature

Junqueras arrived in Madrid this Wednesday and will stay until this Thursday, where he plans to meet with state economic and social agents. The Republican leader landed in the Spanish capital at one of the most delicate moments of the legislature, with the PSOE under siege by various cases of alleged corruption. However, ERC believes that as long as the situation does not escalate to cross lines that the party considers red – such as proof of irregular financing to the PSOE – it is committed to taking advantage of the remaining months of the state legislature to "close fundamental issues for Catalonia". In this regard, the party recalls that two of these issues involve materializing the forgiveness of part of the debt from the autonomous liquidity fund (FLA) and also the new financing model. Two matters agreed upon for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez and that of Salvador Illa.