“It’s all theater”. This sentence from a minister perfectly sums up the relationship between the government and the Junts. The Cabinet member who spoke did so in a context of continued disorder of the Carles Puigdemont formation … this did not succeed. But something has changed. In a very compromised position in Catalonia, with the Aliança Catalana of Sílvia Orriols on the heels of the CEO (the Catalan CIS) and seizing municipal territory, the Executive has chosen to change its roadmap of contempt for the sterile threats of its partners and to engage in “performance”. Moncloa joins in the dance, even if they step on his toes.
Within the government, they have assumed the “rupture” framework that Junts strategically imposed and publicly maintain that nothing has changed. However, in private, As ABC learned, the relationship is still alive and there is an open channel of communication.. Specifically, There is a direct line with Puigdemont to agree on the methodology for calculating tax balances. Its publication is one of the demands that Junts keeps alive and that Moncloa has not yet fulfilled. Until now, the Treasury was not in favor of adopting the Catalan formula, because this issue hides, under an alleged exercise of statistical transparency, the argumentative substrate to justify the singular financing and underpin the speech of the “Spain is stealing from us” typical of the independence movement.
The publication of tax balances is one of the conditions that Puigdemont’s party imposed to support the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez, something the Treasury had promised to do, but only half did, without satisfying the demands of the post-convergents. María Jesús Montero offered the database to the autonomous communities so that they could prepare their own tax balance sheets. What Junts is asking for is not the raw data, but rather The government assumes its independent “kitchen” to legitimize the history of territorial grievance.
Privately, government sources assure that they are in talks with the people of Puigdemont on this subject. Something that conflicts with the public position that everything is broken. “They say we don’t talk, well we don’t talk,” says a member of the Government sarcastically.demonstrating the Executive’s desire not to disturb its allies. Everything is measured to the nearest millimeter. Even the scenography of the carousel of interviews that the President of the Government granted to the Catalan media two weeks ago was agreed with Junts. The Moncloa interlocutors transmitted Sánchez’s initial plans, to which some modifications were made at the request of the post-convergents.
It was during these meetings with the media that the president performed an act of contrition, bordering on self-flagellation, in which commitments continually recognized and not keptwhile – until now – the thesis supported since Moncloa is that “the government is executing”. Last Monday, Sánchez spoke at the end-of-year review press conference, recognizing that relations were “broken”, but anticipating “the absolute desire to achieve and respect the established agreements”. Later, in an informal conversation with journalists, he showed his willingness to “play all the cards” to ensure that the sequence of transfers to the Catalan sovereignists can open a “window of opportunity” to complete the legislature.
The burning highlight of Puigdemont
The effective application of the amnesty plays a fundamental role in this strategy which, for Moncloa, “will be the milestone of 2026”. On the political level, the government has already taken the tortuous path of recognizing itself as a valid interlocutor, with meetings in Brussels and with Sánchez’s willingness to plan a meeting between the two in the future. However, the most important step remains pending: judicial approval. The government estimates that by spring Carles Puigdemont could set foot on Spanish soil and is placing all its hopes in this return to the country, which will ultimately undo relations with Junts. They believe that upon his return, his party will have a landing strip to approve budgets.
At Moncloa, we assure that “amnesty will be the milestone of 2026”
Government sources believe that, until his return to Spain is certified, “they will not give any signals” and that it will be Puigdemont who “will apply pressure and make the decisions” once he arrives here. While waiting for this to happen, Within the Executive, they concentrate on deploying all their seduction efforts. In fact, in private, they equate it to a relationship in which, after a breakup, you have to “conquer” the other party again with all kinds of entertainment. This path is cemented by a whole series of gestures such as the proposal that Catalonia become an associate member of UNESCO or the World Tourism Organization and, above all, the negotiation of the calculation of tax balances.
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