Second crisis of the Catalan government when less than six months have gone by since the swearing-in of vice-president Jordi Puigneró and the 13 ministers appointed by president Pere Aragonès on 26th May. The budget negotiations that ERC opened with the Comuns - with the political space of Ada Colau and Jéssica Albiach - and the refusal of Junts to join, because they believe that it was necessary to carry on the talks with the CUP and, also, that it was a double mistake not to persist until the last minute with the last-named, the smallest party in the pro-independence block of 52%, and to instead place the Comuns in the centre of the equation, have caused nothing less than an earthquake within the ERC-Junts governing coalition and its two component parties.
Throughout Sunday, messages were sent, either through the media or by phone, firstly at the end of the extraordinary morning executive meeting of Junts, later at the meeting of the ERC-led government with the Comuns at the Generalitat palace, and, in the evening, with an urgent cabinet meeting called this Monday morning at 8:30. In the midst of all this tension, the last time that president Aragonès spoke with the secretary general of Junts or the vice-president of his own government dates back to last Friday. And to complicate matters further, the debate on rejecting the budget or admitting it to parliamentary consideration will be this very Monday at 2pm and the vote, unless there is some exceptional development, will be late the same night.
If the Comuns do not withdraw their intention of an "amendment in the entirety", as the position of rejecting the bill is formally known, a large question mark will hang over the status of the Catalan government. But if they do withdraw it and this forces the modification of the budget drafted by the economy minister, Jaume Giró, which is fruit of a lot of balancing between parties and departments, the same doubt remains. The withdrawal from the negotiations of the CUP has apparently left them without any play to make, but in Catalan politics nothing is certain until the last second. And the Socialists have no more cards to play in this hand, but it is obvious that they want to get back into the game anyway that they can.
Common sense suggests that there will be a budget, although it is difficult to know with absolute certainty with the support of whom, without denying that the Comuns are clearly at the centre of the quadrilateral. They can retain this position if they play for a mere exchange of budget support between the government of the Generalitat of Catalonia and that of the city of Barcelona. But they could lose their position if in the exchange they push for some significant change in the budget bill that the government has already presented to the speaker to be entered in Parliament.
On September 14th, a situation like this already occurred, in which the Catalan government was on the brink of the abyss when Pere Aragonès did not accept the delegation presented to him by the general secretary of Junts, Jordi Sànchez , for the dialogue table, which ERC wanted to be exclusively composed of government ministers, and the party led by Carles Puigdemont proposed, among its appointees, the former political prisoners Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Turull and the party's deputy in Madrid, Míriam Nogueras. The Catalan president completely rejected that delegation and the result was that in the only meeting that has taken place, on September 15th, only ministers from ERC attended. That crisis was left frozen, as neither party has since eased its stance.
The budget reproduces the crisis between ERC and Junts, which, in essence, is also related to two different political strategies. So much so that, behind the Catalan executive's controversy with the CUP over its support for the bill, the anti-capitalist party has made no secret of the absence of action to activate that 52% majority and anticipate a new clash with the Spanish state. The Comuns route will obviously lead to a way through the budget, but not to pursue this second objective. That is why the situation is so complicated, although the odds-on bet is that the budget will still be admitted.