Junts wants to be decisive again on 11-29: “We are the only ones who return home with the work done”

BarcelonaJunts begins its campaign the day after the general strike, called, just like the elections, in response to the party's rejection of the Spanish government's two housing decrees. The vote against these two decrees by the Junts members, but also by the PP and Vox, one of which was approved today by the Permanent Deputation, served as an argument for Pedro Sánchez to call early elections. Junts does not begin the campaign with the best outlook, because polls predict a decline. Surveys place Puigdemont's party in a range of five to six deputies, below the seven it achieved in 2023.

But the fact that Aliança Catalana is not running is also good news for Junts, given that one in five potential voters for Aliança Catalana, as in the case of Vox, could opt for Junts in the general elections, according to the latest published barometers. Be that as it may, the Junts members aspire to maintain the results of three years ago. But, if that is not possible, they want to be decisive again in the governability of the State. The goal is to preserve the parliamentary weight that has allowed it to be determinant this legislature.

With Miriam Nogueras as head of the list, the most highly valued leader internally and Junts' greatest asset after Puigdemont, the pro-independence party trusts it will be able to emerge relatively unscathed from an adverse social context. “We are the only ones who return home with the job done,” the candidate said this Thursday at the start of the campaign. The president of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, who spoke live via teleconference from Brussels, expressed himself along the same lines: “Never before had there been so much talk about the seven deputies of Junts. In Europe, they spoke about our seven deputies; this is the voice that has made itself heard against all kinds of blackmail. In Madrid, we do the work that is not being done in Catalonia.”

Standing as the only political formation of strict Catalan obedience due to the pact signed between Esquerra and Podem, Junts proposes itself as the only one that defends the interests of Catalonia in Madrid and is not willing to support any Spanish government without counter-concessions. The chosen slogan, “Catalonia at the center”, summarizes this strategy. “We are the only purely Catalan option, without any interference, dependence, alliance, or complicity with Spanish parties”, Puigdemont has boasted. Junts wants to occupy the middle ground and represent Catalans “tired of the extremes” by contrasting its project with both the Spanish left and the right.

In any case, Nogueras has closed the door to agreements with the PP, which she has described as a “stale right-wing that wants to destroy the Catalan language”. Without any possibility of an understanding with the People's Party, the Junts members have opened up to investing a PSOE candidate, provided it is not the candidate for re-election, Pedro Sánchez. This veto on the Spanish prime minister was already imposed in 2023 and in the end they invested him in exchange for the amnesty law, among other agreements. A veto that they have also extended to the Broad Front candidate, Ada Colau. “With our votes, neither Abascal will be a minister nor Colau will be a minister”, she reiterated this Thursday due to the policies defended by the former mayor of Barcelona and the wounds opened by having snatched the mayoralty from Xavier Trias. “We Catalans are not part of any bloc. What we need is to have strength, because when we tip the balance in our favor, things happen”, she stressed. “When President Salvador Illa criticizes us for being in the middle, we tell him that we will not step aside, because Catalonia is a nuisance to them and being in the middle is a source of pride”, she added.

The economic agreement, the great demand

That said, Junts will only support the PSOE after November 29th if the “Catalan agenda” is placed at the center. With the amnesty late, but already in the bag, the main demand of the Junts members now is the economic agreement. After distancing themselves from the new financing model that Esquerra agreed upon with the Spanish government and which is rejected by the PP and Vox, Junts continues to bet on fiscal sovereignty with the collection and management of all taxes. “The money of the Catalans, in Catalonia. The Basques have it and we Catalans want it for our schools, hospitals, roads, businesses, and families,” Nogueras has made clear.

This is the starting point they have set as a red line to begin any kind of investiture negotiation. In fact, this Friday the party will present the economic sovereignty proposal with a conversation between Nogueras and the vice president, Antoni Castellà. At the same time, the party also wants to address in a future investiture negotiation the culmination of the transfer of Rodalies powers – which the Spanish government announced this Thursday is being halted until the arrival of the new executive –, obtain the immigration powers that Junts is demanding for the Generalitat, and maintain the progress in the use of the Catalan language and achieve its official status in the European Union. Three commitments that were already included in the pact to invest Sánchez that have not been fulfilled, nor has the resolution of the political conflict between Catalonia and Spain, an affair in which no progress has been made at all.