It was interesting to see the restructuring of the Government, which has integrated digital and territorial policies into a single ministry, responsible for investment in information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructures and the more conventional transport of people and goods. It offers a great opportunity to improve some of the policies in this area and the method of making infrastructure policy.

1. Backtracking. All political agreements end in the same way: either by shelving the fundamental disagreements (i.e. maintaining a deposit that could ignite with greater or lesser intensity at any moment) or by sublimating them with euphemisms, and leaving some actors with considerable wear and tear, depending on the stage design of the long period of disagreement.

Three months after the elections to the Catalan Parliament, the negotiations to form a government are not progressing and all the signs point to new elections needing to be called. All this at an extremely delicate time for our country, when a serious economic downturn is gathering pace, when the pandemic has left so many families devastated, so many people out of work, so many companies in a precarious situation and under threat of disappearing. In other words, when the need for a government that takes the helm and tries to provide the best possible response to the set of problems we face as a society is greater than ever.

Two delegations of ERC and JxCat met again this Saturday to try to find a solution to the negotiations to form a government, but the pact still seems far away. In spite of the fact that with the meeting in Lledoners' prison on Tuesday a push was given to the talks and the final folder was already opened, the one on the distribution of Departments between the two formations, today we have not yet reached the point where it can be said that the negotiation is on track and has already overcome the main obstacles. Nothing could be further from the truth. The main obstacles, the role of the Consell per la República and the pro-independence strategy, are still unresolved 25 days before the final deadline.

Yesterday marked two months since the 14 February elections and, after a failed investiture debate, there is still no prospect of a pact between ERC and Junts. The situation is worrying because not only does the agreement seem distant; the negotiations are not even on track. In fact, the negotiating teams have not met for a week (they last met face to face last Wednesday) and the last known episode is that ERC sent Junts a proposal for a pact that includes the guidelines for a new Government (but without the distribution of cabinet posts), the government plan and the role that the Consell per la República has to have. This document was the response to a previous document Junts had sent.

Junts shakes the negotiations with ERC and warns that if the republicans prefer to govern with the CUP and the comuns, they will not be an obstacle: "We will vote for them if this is what they choose" were the words of the secretary general of JxCat, Jordi Sànchez, in an interview in La Vanguardia. That is to say, they are open to facilitate the investiture of Pere Aragonès and move to the opposition. Sources of Junts point out that raising this possibility is a direct reaction to the last declarations of ERC in the sense that the pact with the CUP "will not be touched". This is how Republican MPs Sergi Sabrià and Marta Vilalta protected it in statements to Efe and Europa Press, and this forcefulness has created discomfort in the ranks of the party of Carles Puigdemont. The vice-president of Junts, Elsa Artadi, affirms in an interview in the ARA that the agreement of the CUP and ERC does not "question" them. She defines as "nuclear" for her party elements such as public-private collaboration, when the pact of the Republicans with the anti-system is committed to changing semi-private schools to public ones, or creating public energy. This Sunday Vilalta has insisted on the fact that the agreement with the cupaires is untouchable: "The CUP does not have to fear anything, it is an agreement and agreements are fulfilled".

The CUP has not closed the door to enter the new Government but neither has it taken steps to demonstrate that it wants to be part of it. What the names of the ministers will be and what the programme of the incoming executive will be like will remain unknown as long as Junts and ERC do not reach an agreement, but it is also unknown whether the CUP will be present. Right now, the anti-establishment party does not have it on the table, but "in a few days" it could be debated, in the words of CUP MP Eulàlia Reguant in an interview with Europa Press. They run the risk, however, that in a few days the cat will be out of the bag and Junts and ERC will have already agreed on the new government. Even so, the CUP is keeping the door open to joining: Reguant pointed out that depending on how the pact with the Republicans evolves, they could consider having a seat in the executive with the legislature already underway. In other words, they could enter the Government in the middle of the term.

The second vote of the investiture ended as expected: without the necessary votes to make Pere Aragonès the 132nd president of the Generalitat. Junts's abstention made it impossible, and although this time the tone was much less bitter than on Friday, the two parties cannot allow Catalonia to continue without a government. Junts spokeswoman Gemma Geis expressed her conviction that there will be an agreement before the two-month period prior to the automatic call for elections elapses. On the other hand, Aragonès explicitly acknowledged the role of exiles (remember that the secretary general of ERC, Marta Rovira, is also in exile) and of Carles Puigdemont, but warned that he would not accept "neither tutelage nor substitution".

This Friday at 10 o'clock in the Parliament of Catalonia the debate and the first vote for the investiture of Pere Aragonès as president of the Generalitat will begin despite the lack of an agreement between ERC, Junts and CUP. At the moment, with CUP members yet to ratify their party's pre-agreement with ERC, candidate Aragonès would only secure ERC's 33 votes and CUP's 9, far from the 68 needed. The cause is that ERC and Junts have not succeeded in reaching an agreement in the five weeks that have passed since Feb 14 elections, despite the fact that it was already taken for granted that the next Government would be formed by these two parties. Without going into the degree of responsibility of each of the actors in the lack of agreement, the first thing to say is that it is terrible news that, in the midst of the pandemic and with the country still waiting to embark on the road to economic recovery, there is still no agreement or, at least, a pre-agreement between the two parties.