Feijóo intensifies its presence in Catalonia while Junts sends warning signals to the Government | Spain

In recent weeks, more or less discreetly, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has intensified his presence in Catalonia with a focus on connecting with Catalan businessmen. The leader of the PP has visited the economic forums of the Cercle de Economía and the Foment del Treball, where he met with its director, Josep Sánchez Llibre, in a meeting ―last Monday― that the PP did not publicize, after going to the laboratories Catalans Isdin and attending, a few days before, the UGT congress in Barcelona. Feijóo’s agenda looks at the Catalan employers’ association, where according to Génova there is a “growing interest” in listening to him, in a context of tension between the Government of Pedro Sánchez and Junts per Catalunya, following Carles Puigdemont’s demand that the socialist president subject to a question of confidence in Congress and its veiled threat of not approving the Budgets. The PP leader’s team defends that Puigdemont’s warning to the PSOE is a “turning point” in the relationship between the Catalan independentists and La Moncloa, and winks at that party, although he denies that he is actively seeking its support for a hypothetical motion. of censure against Sánchez.

After this Monday the PP allied itself with Junts to overthrow the tax on electricity production, Feijóo launched another nod to Puigdemont’s side this Wednesday from the Congress platform. “Mrs. Nogueras,” the PP leader addressed the Junts spokesperson, taking advantage of his turn in the Government control session. “Of course Sánchez is not trustworthy,” he told him. “Of course he has deceived them. Of course he is going to continue deceiving them. I have told you this a long time ago and I reiterate it today.” The day before, the parliamentary spokesman for the Popular Party, Miguel Tellado, had welcomed Puigdemont’s request to Sánchez to submit to a question of confidence by welcoming Junts to his opposition bloc. “Sánchez is not trustworthy, of course not. If Junts has realized it now, welcome to this side of the wall,” Tellado said.

The gestures of Feijóo and the PP towards Junts and towards the Catalan business community have increased in parallel to the growing tension between Puigdemont’s people and the Government, although the direct team of the PP leader assures that there is no active work behind it to attract the independentistas to a possible motion of censure against Sánchez. Feijóo opened himself to a motion on November 21 in Congress, although he tried to transfer all the pressure to Sánchez’s partners. “I don’t have the votes to change the Government, but if any of the partners want to end all this, they should know that I am available to open a new stage in our country,” he said then. And that continues to be, according to sources in his cabinet, his strategy: to maintain his disposition to the Government’s allies, but without taking the initiative. The general secretary of Junts, Jordi Turull, this week closed the door to that possibility, which would require the participation of Vox, calling it a “fantasy.”

The PP has doubts about Puigdemont’s real intentions in his threats to the Executive. Génova attaches great importance to the Junts leader’s warning, and believes that the demand that Sánchez submit to a question of trust cannot fall on deaf ears. The popular leadership expects “consequences” for the Government if it does not respond to that request. But other sectors of the PP believe that the Junts leader is only “trying to make the PSOE nervous, with no intention of breaking.” “If Junts were thinking of breaking up and going to elections, it would start to make the Government lose important votes, the non-law proposal asking it to submit to a question of trust is laughable,” says a leader of the Catalan PP with contacts in the ex-convergent world, which also points out that the team surrounding Puigdemont is made up of “amateurs” and, therefore, does not believe that it has a very well-grounded strategy.

Feijóo, in any case, winks at Junts although trying not to give them much focus, aware that the PP faces important contradictions in its relationship with the independentists. At the beginning of this same year, the leader of the PP came to link the independence movement with terrorism, and the PP then embarked on a months-long offensive against the amnesty law. In the half-dozen demonstrations that the Popular Party organized against the pardon measure, PP supporters chanted “Puigdemont, to prison.” Feijóo also faced internal tensions when the PP’s talks with Junts for his failed September investiture came to light, which the leader of the Catalan PP, Alejandro Fernández, opposed. Nor did the PP of Isabel Díaz Ayuso see them favorably.

Different popular sectors are very refractory to a hypothetical understanding of the PP with Junts. “We have not stopped talking to Junts at any time, but it is impossible to make a motion of censure with Junts and Vox, due to their mutual incompatibility. Although better, because Feijóo cannot reach the Government like this. With this composition of Parliament, it would be agony,” reasons a popular leader, summarizing the feeling in many circles of the PP. They do not see it as complicated in the direct team of the popular leader, where they maintain that the right would prefer the company of Junts in order to evict Sánchez from La Moncloa.