Junqueras will meet next week with the ERC group in Madrid amid conflict with Rufián

Barcelona / MadridGabriel Rufián has been insisting for months on forming a sovereignist left-wing front in the State and, at the same time, has an open battle within his parliamentary group. There is no understanding or harmony with the majority of his party colleagues and the conflict has been escalating for months. That is why it is relevant that, in this context, a meeting is scheduled in Madrid next week with Oriol Junqueras. According to what ARA has learned, the president of Esquerra will be in the Spanish capital and will meet with the party's deputies in Congress. A meeting that could be routine if the conflict with Rufián were not looming.

Rufián asks to be able to form his trusted teamRufián asks to be able to form his team of trust even though in Esquerra candidates are chosen by primaries in the territory. Furthermore, he also asks for more influence in decisions that depend on Madrid. In parallel, however, Rufián is also putting on the table a formula to run in the elections that the leadership does not share. His proposal is for the left-wing parties to unite with the PSOE to prevent a victory for the right and the far-right. He has even shown himself willing to lead an eventual candidacy, even though ERC has always said it does not want to enter a formula with state parties. For now, only Irene Montero from Podemos has shown herself willing to explore an alliance and, in fact, they recently shared an event in Barcelona to reflect on the future of the left.

It is not the first time that Oriol Junqueras has met 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 in Madrid with Emilio Delgado to defend a state left-wing front. Junqueras did not attend the event. That week, the Republican leader also took the opportunity to meet with the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, in the midst of talks with the socialists about whether they would enter into negotiations for the Catalan budgets in exchange for the transfer of IRPF collection. A meeting that did not go well and ended up resulting in a no from the Republicans to negotiate the accounts – the Government ended up withdrawing the project.

On this occasion, Junqueras will not only meet with the parliamentary group, but the party has some issues to resolve. This June, the condonation of part of the debt from the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA) should be definitively approved, an issue that ERC had agreed with the PSOE for Pedro Sánchez's investiture in 2023. In July, the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (CPFF) should also meet to reactivate the process to materialize the new financing model.

What will they talk about at the meeting? It remains to be seen if Junqueras will address the elephant in the room: Rufián's situation. In the previous meeting, none of this was discussed, even though the meeting coincided with the ERC spokesperson's event with Emilio Delgado. And on other occasions when other members of the leadership have gone to Madrid to meet with the group, the issue of the next candidacy in the Spanish elections has also not been addressed. So far, the leadership has opted not to mediate in the parliamentary group's conflict and to prescribe patience. Nor had they made a move after deputy Jordi Salvador exploded last week over the conditions Rufián has set to be a candidate. "Patience has a limit," he wrote on X.

The call with Mònica Oltra

The meeting with Oriol Junqueras will take place, according to various sources, next Wednesday or Thursday. The meeting will precede another event also circled on the calendar: on Friday the 19th, Rufián will be in Valencia to share a stage with Mònica Oltra, who could return to the political forefront as Compromís's candidate for the city council of the capital of the Valencian Country. This event will be part of those he has already held in Madrid and Barcelona to unite the left.