The Popular Party continues with its approaches to Junts and has now opened up to a pardon for the fugitive Carles Puigdemont in the same way that the Government of Pedro Sánchez pardoned nine separatist leaders convicted by the Supreme Court for calling an illegal referendum to end national sovereignty and break the unity of Spain.
While the PP organizes demonstrations against the amnesty —at the same time as it divides the Congressional commissions with the PSOE; The General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) sits down to negotiate with the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños; urges the Executive to agree on a deficit target; or agrees to enshrine inequality between men and women in the Constitution—, Génova 13 seeks agreements with Junts for a future motion of censure or a hypothetical investiture. The pardon would be made, they say, as part of a “reconciliation plan for Catalonia“, just what Sánchez defends, who considers that the amnesty is “normalizing the situation in Catalonia” and “committing to coexistence.”
The PP’s approach to Junts is real. The meetings (or statements) of PP leaders in favor of a dialogue with the secessionist party have been permanent since the 23-J elections.
Pedro Rollán, today president of the Senate, did not rule out “speaking” with Junts after the elections (July)
Days after the July 23 elections, the current president of the Senate, Pedro Rollandid not rule out talking to the secessionist party “within the Constitution.” “The PP is now open to talking to Junts ‘within the Constitution'”headlined La Vanguardia on July 30.
Pons meeting with Turull in Pedralbes (August)
The deputy secretary of Institutional Action of the PP, Esteban González Ponstoday the party’s negotiator for the renewal of the CGPJ, met around August 10 with the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, convicted of the 1-O coup, at the home of a businessman in Pedralbes. “González Pons met with Puigdemont’s envoy, Jordi Turull, at a businessman’s house in Pedralbes”headlined OkDiario on September 15.
Pons: «Junts is a party whose tradition and legality are not in doubt» (August)
Pons himself stated on August 23 in an interview on Onda Cero that Junts was “a parliamentary group that, like ERC, beyond the actions that four people, five, ten, carried out, represents a party whose tradition and legality is not in doubt.
The general secretary of the PP in Catalonia confirmed the contacts (August)
On the 24th, the general secretary of the PP in Catalonia, Santiago Rodríguez, confirmed that they were advocating for contacts “to find out their opinion on the investiture.” Asked about the PP’s objective with these contacts, the popular leader indicated that it was to know what his “impressions and wishes” were. Last January he admitted that the contacts had been “informal.”
Meeting of the PP spokesperson in Barcelona with the president of Junts in the Parliament in a hotel in Barcelona (August)
Also in August, the PP spokesperson in Barcelona City Council, Daniel Sireramet at the Alma hotel in Barcelona with the president of Junts en Parlament, Albert Batetthe party’s spokesperson and councilor in Barcelona, Joseph Riosand the political communication expert Xavier Domínguez to address “their possibilities of understanding” for an investiture of Alberto Núñez Feijoo.
«Those days we spoke with many people of all kinds (…) to reach an agreement between Junts and the PP, and prevent Sánchez from continuing to be president. If we had surrendered at Waterloo, as the PSOE has done, Feijoo would be president,” Sirera himself revealed.
Feijoo: “I am not a political and ideological rival of Junts” (August)
“If Junts wants to talk to the Popular Party, I will talk to Junts,” Feijoo stated at the end of August (the 26th) in an interview in El Mundo in which he maintained that he did not contemplate any other possibilities than “negotiating and talking” with all those that they accept that their commitments “could not exceed the Constitution.”
Likewise, he went so far as to describe Junts as “center-right”: “From an economic point of view it is a center-right party, or at least it was.” «We are going to offer you, within respect for the Constitution, to listen to what your demands are, your proposals. And we are going to offer you that we will comply with whatever we agree on. And there is another important thing. “I am not a political and ideological rival of Junts.”
Invitation to the separatist Josep Sánchez Llibre to a conference closed by Feijoo (November)
He People’s Party held the conference in November in Barcelona Road to recovery which was attended by the main representatives of the European popular groups and which was closed by Feijoo himself. One of the guests was Josep Sánchez Bookpresident of the Catalan employers’ association Promotion of Work, former spokesperson for CiU, and defender of amnesty and the «plurinational State«. He asked the PP for “complicity” with PNV and Junts to neutralize the PSOE-Sumar pact.
Feijoo, on a future pact with Junts: “It is our obligation to try” (February)
On February 5, Alberto Núñez Feijoo did not rule out a pact with the separatists. “It is our obligation to try,” he said in an interview given to the three Galician newspapers of the Prensa Ibérica group within the framework of the regional elections on February 18.
The European PP withdraws its proposal to include Puigdemont in the title of a debate on Russian interference in EU affairs (February)
That day, the European People’s Party withdrew its own proposal to change the title of a debate on Russian interference in the European Union’s democratic processes. The initial proposal sought to expand the title of the debate to specifically include the case of contacts of MEPs Tatiana Zhdanoka and Carles Puigdemont with elements linked to the Russian intelligence service, but it was withdrawn after Feijoo’s gesture to Junts.
The PP opens itself to a pardon for Puigdemont (February)
This weekend it was revealed that the PP is open to a “conditional pardon” for the fugitive Carles Puigdemont as part of a “reconciliation plan for Catalonia” and that “studied” the possibility of an amnesty for 24 hours. «Of course we are in favor of reconciliation and we will do everything possible so that those who broke coexistence are reconciled with the rule of law,” Feijoo said on Saturday.
