The non-meeting between Carles Puigdemont and Pedro Sánchez

BarcelonaIn the first Christmas glass The meeting that Pedro Sánchez led at Moncloa Palace after the 2013 elections included a possible meeting in the informal talks: one between the Spanish president and former president Carles Puigdemont. In fact, this was the main topic of discussion, along with the possibility of a meeting with Oriol Junqueras. Two years after that first meeting input For "political normalization," only one meeting has taken place: that of the Esquerra leader this Thursday.

The meeting with Puigdemont, although there have been ups and downs throughout the tortuous relationship with the Junts party during this legislature, has not yet occurred and is not currently on the horizon, according to sources familiar with Junts. In fact, the current state of relations between Puigdemont's party and Sánchez—who held a consultation with their members to break with the PSOE—is very different from that of the Republicans, who, after months of talks, are satisfied with the financing agreement they have signed with the Treasury and are prepared, if there is progress with income tax collection, to negotiate budgets both in Catalonia and at the national level. Right now, the Junts party is pinning all its hopes on the return of former president Carles Puigdemont to Catalonia after the expected ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union and the subsequent anticipated decision from the Constitutional Court.

If this happens, Puigdemont's priority will be touring all of Catalonia, and the relationship with the PSOE will take a back seat. The goal of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) will be to reverse their declining poll numbers and use their leader's presence in the region, if it materializes, to try to counteract the effect of the far-right Aliança Catalana, which, according to the polls, is making inroads, especially among post-Convergent voters. Nor will the Socialists be interested in being seen with the exiled leader, as they face a complicated regional election cycle after their setback in Extremadura.

When it had to be

Although the photograph of Sánchez and Puigdemont has not yet materialized, there was a time when it was a relevant issue for the Junts party. In fact, the concept of "political amnesty," alluding to the normalization of the former president's image, is a term that Junts has used to demand that the PSOE recognize Puigdemont as a legitimate interlocutor. The first to open the floodgates in these terms was the Spanish vice president and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, who immediately went to Brussels after the elections to pave the way for the start of negotiations. Subsequently, it was Santos Cerdán—now at the epicenter of one of the alleged corruption cases affecting the PSOE—who signed the investiture agreement and posed for the photo with Puigdemont and Turull. And then came the staged meeting with Sánchez: it almost went to the European Parliament. in Strasbourg, during a visit by the Spanish president.

So Junts wanted that image. Right after the episode in France, the party's general secretary, Jordi Turull, announced that there would be a "proper meeting" between the two leaders. Nothing could have been further from the truth: from that moment on, the discussion was whether it should be before or after the amnesty (Junts wanted it before, and Moncloa was downplaying the imminent scenario), while once the law was approved, the upheaval of the legislature has been such that neither side has been interested. Once the Cerdán case broke, Sánchez already had enough problems, and the Junts members wondered if Puigdemont would be more than happy to be seen with the head of the Spanish government, especially since there's little fish in the Junts ranks to boast of any major pact.

And the conception of what this meeting should entail has never been the same for Junts and the PSOE. While Puigdemont saw it as a necessary staged event within the framework of negotiations on the political conflict between Catalonia and Spain, the Socialists have not viewed their relationship with Junts in this way and have always used it as a tool that could help calm them in moments of tension; that is, as a kind of concession. In fact, this was the approach. from the meeting held in September between the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Isla and Puigdemont in Brussels. A long-awaited meeting of great institutional significance, but one that failed to prevent a break already decided in the summer by Junts with the PSOE.