Together and the PSOE explore the limits of their precarious honeymoon

MadridThere are marriages of convenience and tense honeymoons, such as those experienced by the PSOE and Junts in this legislature. "Relations have been improving," Spanish government sources assured this week, following the agreement on the distribution of migrant minors. Unblocking the situation of the 4,400 children and adolescents who have been living in precarious conditions in the Canary Islands and Ceuta for months was a priority for the executive, which once again has not found the support of the PP, despite the conservative party being part of the coalition government of the Canary Islands. That same Tuesday, the PSOE—with the PP, Vox, and the PNV—endorsed the first step of a Junts bill per speed up express evictions in the case of jobs. But disagreements continue and this week Junts has participated in a setback to the PSOE-Sumar coalition over the No at the last minute in the creation of the Spanish Public Health Agency.

A month ago, the party led by Carles Puigdemont withdrew the motion of confidence against Pedro Sánchez, a symbolic initiative that had strained relations between the two. The threat from the former Catalan president to suspend negotiations with the PSOE led to a new rapprochement that crystallized in the agreement for the delegation of immigration powers to the Generalitat, although the first disagreements on how it will be implementedThe Government is prepared to accept them and Catalan is an important element in granting permits to foreigners, but the Ministry of the Interior has already warned that the closure of foreign detention centers (CIE), for example, will remain a State decision.

Junts has weathered the Spanish government's cuts to the pact, which was a necessary condition for the separatists to agree on the distribution of minors among the regions. "They've been much more loyal than the PP," they emphasize in the Moncloa Palace regarding the attitude of the judiciary members. There are several interpretations: that Junts has agreed because the number of children and adolescents who will arrive in Catalonia is very few—around thirty, according to their calculations—and thus competes with the Catalan Alliance on the immigration front; or that Puigdemont's party has been generous in offering their support to the Spanish government on an issue, that of welcoming unaccompanied minors, which would not be a priority for Junts. This second thesis is the Spanish government's.

But if the spokesperson in Madrid, Míriam Nogueras, makes one thing clear, through her insistence, it is that her party is not part of any bloc and that its votes are solely to benefit Catalonia. This is the premise that led them to vote against the Public Health Agency on Thursday, along with the PP and Vox, in protest against the Spanish government's veto of an amendment passed in the Senate that extended the life of cogeneration plants for manure treatment. "No Spanish agency is above the farmers and ranchers of Catalonia," Nogueras stated.

The tacit pact

The scenario agreed upon by both parties is based on unspoken rules that are always repeated when there are clashes. The PSOE knows it can't criticize Junts because it needs to. And this week saw yet another example of this: Pedro Sánchez only attacked the PP for having defeated the Public Health Agency despite having voted in favor in committee, and he didn't mention Junts, although he could be held responsible for exactly the same thing. And from the other side, the pro-independence party has agreed to collaborate with a Spanish government that, while acknowledging that there is a conflict between Catalonia and the Spanish state when they reached the agreement to invest Sánchez, celebrates every day the "normalization" and "coexistence" of the post-process. Especially with the arrival of Salvador Illa to the Generalitat, which at the conference on Thursday in Madrid Not only did he not speak about independence or a referendum, but he did not even speak about the Cercanías (Commuter Rail).