Junts renounces the vote so that Sánchez can submit to a vote of confidence

Junts per Catalunya will finally withdraw the vote that was scheduled for this Wednesday in Congress in which it asked Pedro Sánchez to submit to a vote of confidence. The intervention of the international mediator for the talks between the PSOE and JxCat, the Salvadoran Francisco Galindo, who opted to abandon the idea, has been key.

“The executive has discussed the situation and the ambassador's request and, despite noting that there is no trust with the PSOE, it has decided to respond to the ambassador's request,” announced this afternoon the secretary general of Junts, Jordi Turull. A decision that the party has taken “to make a final effort to avoid a break-up.”

The leader of the Catalan party has fully justified the decision and has emphasised the mediator and the trust he inspires in them: “We owe him the trust we do not have with the PSOE,” he stressed. “He deserves the utmost respect and gratitude,” Turull had said shortly before, since his role “is essential for agreements to be reached.” Thus, the withdrawal of the proposal is more out of deference to Galindo than out of consideration for the PSOE, as Turull has repeatedly insisted. “He asks us to avoid breaking off relations,” he stressed before admitting that “trust with the Socialist Party is very deteriorated.”

The post-convergents have taken the decision to withdraw the non-legislative proposal (PNL) this morning, at the meeting of the party's leadership. "The issue is quite important and deserves a rigorous debate. Tomorrow we will decide together," Jordi Turull, secretary general of Junts, had warned his party colleagues yesterday to prevent them from making any statements.

In the last few hours, the Government had made a move to give Junts more reasons to avoid the vote and convince them. Thus, it has guaranteed that Spain will adhere to a protocol that will allow the highest courts to request advisory opinions from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) . It will be approved tomorrow in the Council of Ministers and will have to be confirmed by Congress. In any case, sources from Carles Puigdemont's party say that this adhesion should have happened a long time ago, since it was agreed "half a year ago."

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Whatever the case, this decision by JxCat puts an end to an issue that had been driving the PSOE and Sánchez's government crazy. Since Puigdemont asked the president of the government on December 9 to submit to a vote of confidence, considering that he was not fulfilling his commitments, relations between the socialists and post-convergents had become extremely tense. The transfer of immigration powers to Catalonia and the official status of the Catalan language in Europe remain up in the air. In January, relations were somewhat rectified when the request was softened by recognizing in the text that the vote would not have any "legal binding".

Rarely has a PNL occupied so much media space. And that is even though the PNL is only a political position and would not have been binding or had legal consequences. But it would have demonstrated once again the weakness of a central Executive totally dependent on a whole group of parliamentary groups. Sánchez cannot forget any of them in order to approve any initiative in Congress. For JxCat the vote in Congress would also have been somewhat compromising, since a priori it would have opted to request the vote of confidence only together with the PP, but above all together with Vox.

Read also PSOE and Junts meet in Switzerland just before the debate on the question of confidence Iñaki Pardo Torregrosa

The political impact of the request was demonstrated once again with the latest meeting between representatives of the PSOE and Junts. They met on Friday in Switzerland, within the framework of the meetings that they hold periodically. But this meeting was attended by the former President of the Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.