JxCat asks Aragonès to renounce to the second investiture debate until there is a pro-independence agreement

"After today's vote, with a firm will to find a good agreement, we formally ask you to give up the second vote of investiture until there is an agreement for independence". This has been the proposal that the leader of the Junts per Catalunya group, Albert Batet, has launched to the Esquerra candidate, Pere Aragonès, after announcing that he will abstain and overthrow his election as president of the Generalitat. A way, according to Junts, to give themselves more time to reach an agreement, which has not taken long to be rejected by Esquerra, which believes that a pact is possible before the next vote on Tuesday.

"We have the obligation after a month and 14 days to reach an agreement. The situation of economic and social urgency does not admit delays. Covid does not wait. Neither does repression. And we need strong institutions", stressed the vice-president. According to Aragonès, not only "there are no insurmountable differences", those that exist "are smaller than those that have existed in previous investiture procedures". ERC has vehemently reminded in recent days that in the recent past they have invested the candidates of JxCat and PDECat without problems.

Batet has pledged to continue "working and negotiating" for an agreement in the coming "days or weeks", hinting that Junts is not planning to change its position on Tuesday. "He knows that there will not be time to reach a good agreement because of the way the negotiations are going", Batet warned: "three years of disagreements cannot be resolved in three days". On Twitter, the secretary general of Junts, Jordi Sànchez, criticised the investiture speech made by Aragonès, asserting that he has not seen "interest" in including his party. He concluded: "We are fully prepared to continue negotiating with loyalty, respect and discretion in order to give meaning to the 52% pro-independence movement".

In line with the public statements, Batet has called for a "strong" and "stable" government that will last throughout the legislature. "We do not want a pact just for the sake of an investiture", he stressed, "we do not want to repeat past mistakes", summarised the president of JxCat's parliamentary group. In her opinion, surpassing 50% of the votes cannot be "the same" as failing to do so and having 48%. "There must be political consequences", Albert Batet insisted, and "specifics" on the pro-independence road map, beyond a dialogue table that he has committed to join, but with "scepticism". In exchange, he has once again insisted on the Consell per la República as "allied leadership", Junts' proposal for forging the new pro-independence strategy. Aragonès did not explicitly refer to the body piloted by Carles Puigdemont, beyond defending a strategic consensus based on the referendum and also "recognising" the work of the former president in exile.

Discomfort over prioritising the CUP

If anything has exuded from Batet's speech, it is Junts' discomfort at the way Esquerra has approached the negotiations. She complained that they want to make them buy the pre-agreement that the Republicans have reached with the CUP without having cooked it. "It is a bit strange to first agree on a government programme with a parliamentary partner [CUP] and not with the partner with whom the government has to be formed", said Batet, urging Esquerra to reach a "good agreement" with them first to avoid a "Vietnam" and "mistrust" in a new coalition.

The president of the parliamentary group allowed himself the irony of exemplifying what he believes Esquerra is doing: "You have prepared the table for us, you have set the cutlery, you have told us what we had to eat and, on top of that, the bill is this". "We tell you no, that we should set the table together and decide what we want first and what we will do afterwards (...). This is not done by imposition or submission", he concluded.