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The final negotiations are underway. They have started this week secretly. The PSOE and ERC have already appointed the six people who will sit at the table to negotiate the terms of the agreement that should allow the independence Republicans to facilitate, at least with one abstention, the investiture of Pedro Sánchez .

There will be three representatives from the Socialists: the Deputy Secretary General and Parliamentary Spokesman, Adriana Lastra ; the secretary of Organization of the PSC, Salvador Illa , and the secretary of Organization, José Luis Ábalos . And three by ERC: spokesman in Congress, Gabriel Ruffian; the deputy general secretary of the party, Marta Vilalta , and the president of the National Consell, Josep María Jové , charged for her role in organizing the illegal 1-O referendum before the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia .

Jové is considered the architect of the process. During the investigation of the criminal process that was opened to investigate how the attempt of independence of Catalonia was planned, a Moleskine notebook owned by Jové was discovered in which the four possible scenarios for the unilateral declaration of independence were described and realized all the meetings held to reach that final stage.

In spite of all this, the Socialists accepted on Thursday, after a discreet meeting between Rufian and Lastra in Congress, to sit down and negotiate, in a definitive attempt to carry out the investiture of Sanchez. Yesterday, the acting president of the Government maintained an office with King Felipe VI in which he presumably informed him of the contacts maintained to unlock the situation.

The meetings between socialists and republicans will begin next week and in them the representatives of the PSOE and the Government will listen to the demands of ERC and will study the possible concessions to be made to attract the support, tacit or express, of the 13 independentista deputies.

This is, therefore, a first dialogue forum that, for the moment, as Republican sources clarified yesterday, does not invalidate the consultation to the bases scheduled for Monday. A consultation in which the leadership of the party asks its militancy if it agrees to "reject" support for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez in the event that the Socialists do not agree to address the "political conflict" between Catalonia and the State to Through a negotiating table. In parallel to these conversations that both parties say will continue, they will keep in touch the acting Vice President of the Government, Carmen Calvo , and the Vice President of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès .

The ERC leader Josep Maria Jové, when he was arrested.

Party table and amnesty for 1-O

In principle, from the PSOE it is maintained that any dialogue with the independence forces will have to develop strictly within the framework of constitutional legality, a field in which there are no concepts such as the right of self-determination pursued by secessionism or the possibility of celebrating a referendum for a part of citizens to decide on what belongs to all Spaniards.

ERC, as explained by party sources last night, will raise the need for the Socialists to commit themselves to set up a table "for the resolution of the conflict with guarantees of compliance" in which "all issues" can be addressed. The same sources indicated that ERC faces negotiations without renouncing any of its requirements, which also include amnesty for those convicted by the Supreme Court in the case of the process . Amnesty is, like the right of self-determination, a figure that does not exist in Spanish legislation. The Constitution expressly prohibits so-called general pardons.

With these initial approaches on the part of both, the negotiations have a very narrow channel to run, unless finally the Socialists find a formula to mask concessions or the Republicans very substantially lower their demands so that they can fit into the Constitution. At the moment, ERC is the only party with which the PSOE has agreed to constitute a negotiating forum with a view to the investiture, after the pre-agreement signed on 12, 48 hours after the elections, with United We can .

After the electoral result that has drawn a hugely fragmented parliamentary arch, Pedro Sánchez needs the concurrence of a wide range of political forces to carry out his investiture. In this range, the abstention of the ERC deputies is essential in order to obtain, on the second ballot, that the votes in favor of the socialist candidate outweigh the votes against.

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  • ERC
  • PSOE
  • Pedro Sanchez
  • Catalonia
  • Supreme Court
  • United We Can
  • Adriana Lastra
  • PSC
  • José Luis Ábalos
  • Gabriel Rufián
  • Carmen Calvo

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