ERC admits that negotiations are going better with CUP than with JxCat

Two weeks after the start of negotiations to form a Government, the deputy secretary general of ERC, Sergi Sabrià, admitted today that negotiations are going better with the CUP than with JxCat, whom he has reproached for still not knowing what it wants. The ERC leader said he is "happy" with how the talks are evolving with the CUP and regretted that the same thing is not happening with Carles Puigdemont's party. "I still find it hard to know what JxCat wants and that's why we have been meeting with them for so many hours," Sabrià said in an interview with RTVE. ERC and CUP have brought their positions closer on what changes the police model needs, one of the key issues set the mandate in motion. However, ERC and JxCat have not managed to reach an agreement on the long-term strategy towards independence.

"JxCat says it is very important to agree on the roadmap and for us too, but we want to talk about the rest, as we are doing with the CUP, because today society has other priorities because of the pandemic and we have to make independence a useful tool in the social sphere," he said after saying that the national and social issues have to go hand in hand. Be that as it may, Sabrià stressed that "the differences are becoming smaller and smaller" with JxCat. As an example, he said JxCat now agreed to a second referendum, a position previously only defended by ERC.

On the misgivings of JxCat regarding the negotiating table with the Spanish government, the deputy secretary general of ERC has urged JxCat to offer an "alternative". "If she has one, she has to explain it because what is clear is that independence cannot last eight seconds," he reiterated, in reference to JxCat's proposal to activate the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Sabrià validated the dialogue table and stressed that now they are "stronger" thanks to the 52% of votes achieved in the elections and made it clear that now they want "the new government to be united".

As for the Speakership, another of the obstacles in the negotiations, Sabrià said he shares the words of the former president of the Catalan chamber Carme Forcadell that it should be "a woman of the left" who is the next speaker: "It seems good to me", he said before opining that JxCat "represents the liberal center independentism", despite recognising that this has to be part of a "broad agreement". Sabrià has also advanced that he will not be a Minister in the new executive. "I'm not particularly excited and I prefer a more discreet place because I've been in the front line for some time now".