Juanma Lamet Madrid

Madrid

Updated Saturday, March 23, 2024-09:25

  • Adrián Vázquez "This is the end of Ciudadanos, the project no longer has a future"

  • Resignation The negotiation of PP and Cs fails: there will be no "integration" neither in Catalonia nor in the European ones

The agreement that Cuca Gamarra and Adrián Vázquez

were going to sign

was very "generous" with Ciudadanos. This is recognized by sources familiar with the negotiations. The orange formation right now has a very dark demographic expectation both in the Catalan elections of May 12 and in the European elections of June 9. In both it would obtain zero seats. In fact, the voting intention in the party's homeland does not even reach 1%. However, the PP offered them three starting positions on the Catalan list and two on the European list, as confirmed by official sources from both parties to EL MUNDO.

This was a larger proportion than Cs expected in principle, as sources from the new orange leadership now confess after the resignation of Adrián Vázquez. The MEP and president of the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament resigned on Friday as secretary general

for lacking sufficient support in Catalonia

to accept this agreement.

The problem for Cs was that he did not want to lose his initials. And the PP would not give up theirs either. The oranges needed

to maintain the image and identity of their project.

For this, according to the same sources, what was negotiated was the possibility of adding the "tri-flag heart" to the PP acronym, which is a logo associated with Cs and created by its spokesperson,

Jordi Cañas

. It is a heart with the flags of Catalonia, Spain and the European Union.

In this way, the absence of the Cs acronym in the electoral campaign would have been overcome. But the alternative was to get zero seats, they reasoned both in the orange leadership and in those around

Alberto Núñez Feijóo.

In addition to the logo, the PP offered Vázquez - who accepted them -

three of the top 12 positions

on the Catalan list. It must be remembered that the Catalan CIS predicts between 9 and 13 deputies for the popular ones. One of those positions was reserved for Carlos Carrizosa, the man whom Madrid points out as the cause of the agreement not materializing. In any case, names were not discussed because the most important thing was to first close the "integration" of Cs into the PP project.

Added to that were two starting places on the European list. The names were not discussed, but sources from the Genoa management point out to this newspaper that they had been Vázquez himself and the Cs MEP

Eva Poptcheva

.

After Vázquez's resignation, the members of the National Committee of Cs decided to attend alone the Catalan elections on May 12 and the European elections that will take place on June 9. And they announced "an election process for that responsibility." Meanwhile, the party coordinator,

Carlos Pérez-Nievas

, will take the reins.

According to sources from the liberal party, the Committee meeting on Friday afternoon took place in a good tone, and there was widespread praise for Vázquez's work. Of course, some of the 36 members of the Committee announced that

they are going to step away from their responsibilities

. They will also resign.

In that conclave,

Carlos Carrizosa

, the leader of Cs in Catalonia who pushed Vázquez not to dilute the acronym of Cs on the PP list, took the floor and, according to sources present, said that now we had to go "all out" in the Catalan elections, and made it clear that he had not liked some comments made to the press.

He was referring to

Adrián Vázquez publicly disavowing him on Thursday

at a breakfast in Madrid: "There are people who have to stop looking at their navel and have to look outside," he said.

After Carrizosa's complaint (which did not go any further, according to sources), Pérez-Nievas took the floor in the National Committee of Cs to tell him that Adrián Vázquez

had defended exactly the same project

of a "common front" of constitutionalism in Catalonia.

The difference between the two is that one (Vázquez) was willing to give up the initials in order to maintain the project and the other (Carrizosa) was not.

"The noise from outside has not helped at all

," say sources from said Committee.

For the PP, this agreement would also have been beneficial. The Catalan electorate could have been presented as all the space between the amnesty and Vox. It would have much more easily attracted notable names from non-nationalist civil society. Some of them could even have occupied a testimonial place on the lists. And

Rivera and Arrimadas would have been closer to campaigning

, something that is now considered impossible.