• Spain.Pedro Sánchez contacts Citizens and the PNV is now open to negotiate a last extension of the state of alarm

Sixth and last extension of the alarm state in Spain due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Government has withdrawn from ERC the commitment that it will abstain from voting in Congress next week so that it can be authorized for 15 more days. After the republicans voted against in the previous requests of the Executive, which led Moncloa to seek the support of Citizens, this time everything points to the green light being given with their abstention to the extension.

The Executive has not even officially confirmed that it will request this sixth extension and, in fact, it was expected that President Pedro Sánchez himself would communicate it in a public appearance, which was finally canceled late yesterday. But the own conversations with ERC ratify the intention of the Executive and sources familiar with the negotiation assume that the Council of Ministers will request the Chamber the sixth extension on Tuesday and that they will have sufficient support for its approval, thanks to the abstention of ERC and the rest of the formations with which Moncloa has conversations at the moment.

It remains to be determined the compensation ERC will receive in exchange for not torpedoing this last state of alarm although, according to Republican sources, the Executive is open to managing the de-escalation in Catalonia with the Generalitat. In addition, economic measures play an important role in supporting Republicans since the Catalan government is very interested in being able to receive and dispose of European reconstruction funds and allocate consignments to industrial areas severely affected by the pandemic, according to some sources. The Government could also receive the management of the minimum vital income, as the Basque Government will do thanks to the PNV, according to "La Vanguardia".

Despite the fact that the Esquerra Executive has given the green light to this intention to vote, the decision must be endorsed at the party's permanent commission meeting next Monday. We will have to see how this new ERC support affects its relations with its JxCat partners in the Govern, after a few days ago, with the Republicans' rejection of the request for the penultimate state of alarm, President Quim Torra affirm: " This is the way, working together to culminate the independence of Catalonia. "

Ten days later the consensus has been broken. Torra has stressed this Saturday that JxCat will again oppose the extension of the state of alarm if the powers that are currently under the command of the Government are not returned to the Catalan administration. "It is evident that the Govern demands resources and all its powers," assured the president, who added that the Generalitat "will naturally oppose any extension of the state of alarm that does not return our powers."

Torra has also demanded "the 4,000 million euros that Catalonia needs", that the deficit target be expanded to 0.2% and that local administrations be allowed to use their surplus.

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