The PSOE is trying to overcome the last stone placed by Junts in the path of the legislature and is striving to find a formula that does not imply anything resembling a break. The hot potato that they decided to postpone just a month ago returns to Congress this Thursday. The Lower House Table meets at 11:00 a.m. and must decide what to do with the non-law proposal registered by Junts and that demands Pedro Sánchez submit to a question of confidence, a prerogative that the Constitution establishes as exclusive to the figure of the president of the Government. Although the Socialists will not support its processing, the negotiation with Puigdemont’s party continued late this Wednesday in search of an agreed solution that would avoid further damage to the already battered political relationship.
Junts, which publicly accuses Sánchez of repeated breaches of the signed agreements (privately, according to socialist sources, the main discomfort they express is that Puigdemont and other leaders have not yet been able to benefit from the amnesty), stood out in December with a demand unprecedented: that the president revalidate his continuity in office before the Plenary Session of Congress as a prior condition to negotiating the Budgets. The movement already caught the Moncloa by surprise at the time, which came to consider that it was an overreaction by the Catalan independentists. But in recent weeks they have not stopped feeding the order.
“If it is not processed, we will make decisions and you will not like them,” said the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, this week. Before, Puigdemont himself even warned of “irreversible consequences.” The Government responded to this verbal escalation this Tuesday with something similar to slamming the door. “There is an issue of substance and another of form,” explained the Executive spokesperson, Pilar Alegría. “In form, because it is an exclusive prerogative of the President of the Government, and in substance because for what? The Government fulfills its commitments to all groups,” he claimed. Privately, several Moncloa sources consulted by this newspaper assured that the proposal will not be processed in any case because that would set a “dangerous” precedent, which would call into question the role of the parliamentary groups and of the President of the Government himself, whose functions come “clearly established in the Constitution.”
The key, according to other parliamentary sources consulted, is how to avoid this procedure this Thursday at the Board meeting so that the legislature does not blow up. In the PSOE they fear that a pure and simple rejection by the socialist representatives of the non-legal proposal will provoke a whole cataract of angry reactions on the part of Puigdemont and his people. And that not only destroys any option to negotiate Budgets, but also has even more implications, such as the blocking of nuclear measures for the Executive such as the reduction of working hours or the announced package on housing.
For this reason, conversations between the leadership of the PSOE and that of Junts have intensified since Monday in search of a solution. As this newspaper has been able to confirm from sources familiar with the negotiation, the proposal that the Socialists have conveyed to Puigdemont’s entourage is to “reformulate” its text, as also stated in the report from the Congress lawyers that it requested in its day the Table.
The idea of this reformulation, according to those same sources, would be to reinforce the “merely and exclusively political” nature of the initiative, in the form of a reproach or demand that the Government comply with the signed agreements. But avoid direct allusions to a constitutional mechanism, that of the question of confidence, exclusively reserved for the President of the Government.
Having completely ruled out the classification of the non-law proposal as it is registered, all the sources consulted remained cautious on Wednesday night regarding the final decision of the Board. Among these sources, there are those who even leave the door open for it to be the governing body of the Chamber itself who this Thursday ends up “urging” Junts to “reformulate” its initiative to avoid overturning it directly, something they think in the PSOE that could still give some margin to the negotiation and would avoid the clash. Although all of this is linked, according to the people consulted by elDiario.es, during conversations that are expected to last until the morning of Thursday.
From Junts they are cautiously following the steps of the PSOE in these last hours before the final decision on the admission of their initiative for processing. Sources from the party stated this Wednesday that they were still speaking with the Government group, but that they had not planned a substantial modification of the proposal, which according to what they indicate is not a “disguised motion of censure”, but rather a proposal to invite Sánchez to reaffirm the support of the Chamber, if he has it.
At Junts they emphasize this issue, as they consider it an “excess” that the Board does not accept to process their proposal, which is a non-law proposal with no legal effects, only political ones. For this reason, those of Puigdemont insist, their initiative should reach the plenary session, even more so when the lawyers of Congress have seen no problems with it.
Beyond the legal issue and remembering that they have been warning of “irreversible consequences”, the independence party does not plan to make prior statements. In fact, he could even avoid any demonstration on Thursday in Congress, to give all the prominence to his leader. “We will give the reaction at the press conference.” [de Carles Puigdemont]”, they say, in reference to an appearance scheduled for Friday.
In a 14-page report that addressed whether or not from a legal point of view that the Junts initiative be admitted for processing, the lawyers of the Lower House ended up washing their hands and passing the hot potato to the parliamentary groups representing on the table. “In view of the existing precedents, it is not possible to extract a univocal line of action on the part of the Board. Starting from the premise that we are faced with a non-legal proposition, the result of the vote on this initiative, if it were admitted and submitted to the Plenary, will have no legal impact on the relationship of trust existing between the Legislative Branch and the Executive. ” noted that report.
The letter adds that, since there are no precedents, “it is up to the Board to establish a criterion, which will probably serve as a reference for the decision regarding the admission for processing of other control initiatives in the future.” Of course, in the case of being admitted for processing, the legal services have already suggested to Junts that they reformulate their initiative. “The parliamentary group that authored the initiative could be asked to reformulate it to reinforce its exclusively political nature.”
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