The acting Minister of the Presidency, Felix Bolañosand the first secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, have announced an agreement with ERC that contributes seven more votes to the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. The only thing missing is the agreement with Puigdemont to assume that the socialist leader will be able to remain in La Moncloa and face a new legislature. Thus, now, everything once again depends on the commitment to Junts, something that the socialists have not achieved so far. The fugitive Puigdemont has been meeting since early in the morning with the leadership of his party analyzing the socialist offer and in the middle of the afternoon he concluded the meeting without being able to announce the pact.
Bolaños has signed the agreement with the leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, one of those convicted of the 2017 attempt against the State and later pardoned by the coalition government. The pact between socialists and republicans was practically made last Tuesday after a telephone conversation between Sánchez and the president of the Generalitat, Peter Aragonés, and was only waiting for the socialists to accept the latest conditions: the transfer, financing included, of Rodalíes and the improvement of Catalan financing through the forgiveness of part of its debt. According to Bolaños, this latest agreement will be extended to the rest of the CCAA.
Illa has assured that today we are “closer to an investiture” that builds a wall “in front of the right and the extreme right, as the majority of Spaniards voted. We cannot give any option to either the right or the extreme right,” has emphasized. “We continue to advance on the path of coexistence and political normalization in Catalonia,” said Illa, who added that the climate of confrontation has been the result of the management of the right that “frustrated the aspirations of Catalans.”
“As a socialist and as a Catalan,” he stated, “I believe that we are witnessing a new stage that will leave behind the political rupture that became a social rupture. Catalan society has turned the page. We will leave behind years of resentment, absence, dialogue and disagreements “.
Bolaños, for his part, explained that the agreement facilitates “the investiture and the legislature with a progressive Government.” In his opinion, this pact responds “to the mandate of the polls.” “There is no other way to do politics than with dialogue and agreement,” he assured. The agreements reached, he insisted, “improve coexistence and turn the page and also improve public services.” Furthermore, the pact contemplates “the approval of an amnesty law that will return to politics what should never have left it.” However, this law continues to be negotiated with other forces and until these talks are concluded its content will not be made public. With this explanation, the acting Minister of the Presidency alluded to the contacts with Junts that at the moment remain open.