Already on Catalan election night on the 14th February, I ventured to point out that the negotiation for the creation of a new government of Catalonia would not be fast and, moreover, would be enormously confused. Today, no-one can elude this reflection and even the only person who is a viable candidate to preside over the Catalan executive, the number one for the Republican Left (ERC), Pere Aragonès, has called on his possible allies in the solemn framework of a public statement to overcome contradictions and avoid the recklessness of a repeat election. Perhaps this was the last call for En Comú Podem to stop vetoing Together for Catalonia (Junts) as a member of the future executive. Without the 32 seats from the party led by Puigdemont, Sànchez and Borràs, the recipe lacks the ingredient necessary for the condition that is essential right now: the ability to form a stable government that will not only launch the legislature but have the will to complete the four years it must last.
The slow progress of the negotiations between ERC and Junts is more than evident, while the former are advancing with the Popular Unity Candidature (CUP) in the social field and the latter are doing so in what could be called the area of identity. But let no one be deceived: the votes of the CUP are essential for the investiture to go ahead, but neither ERC nor Junts are dying either to have them supply the Speaker of Parliament, or much less so, to be a partner within the government. That none of them verbalize this reluctance is something else. But the clock is ticking, and if for the constituent session of Parliament there were initially 20 working days from the holding of the elections - until March 12th - and for the speaker of Parliament to propose an official candidate for investiture as president there are ten more days - until March 26th if everything goes to its deadline - then almost half of the days that were available on election night have now been crossed off the calendar. And the parties are still in the phase of the new government's roadmap and how to marry the policies to be enacted with the electoral programmes of ERC and Junts. There are two pitfalls ahead: the what, and the when - or also the how long in matters such as, for example, the evaluation of the results of the dialogue table.
At an impasse, as they seem to be based on their silence and absolute discretion, the days are falling off the calendar and there is a risk of turning the outcome of the negotiations into a kind of roulette. Both parties want to resolve them well, especially because the results of 14th February were exceptional for the independence movement and with 52% of the vote and 74 of the 135 seats in the house, calling Catalan voters back to the polls a second time due to internal disagreements would only benefit the Socialists. ERC, which naturally is setting the pace of the negotiations, will have to clarify by this Friday the equation for the allocation of the Speaker of Parliament which, if the formula for the last legislature was mimicked exactly, would correspond to Junts. Resolving this issue in one way or another will be the first indication of whether the start of the legislature is gaining momentum or, on the contrary, stagnating. In any case, it is clear that something is wrong when the elapsed time in the calendar is close to 50% and the agreements reached, if they could be quantified, cover not much more than 10%. Although it is true that if negotiators manage to unblock the roadmap, the cruising speed will be different.
In short: it is likely that by now ERC and Junts already know that there are no alternative scenarios of agreement, nor a plan B other than new elections. And yet they are still very far from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for plan A and from coming up with an agreement which, in the words of Aragonès in his lecture on Thursday, will be "solid, honest and generous."