"It's deplorable!" Pere Aragonès's indignation resonated around the Catalan Parliament on Wednesday morning. Catalonia's vice president - and acting president - who belongs to the ERC party, was aiming his ire at old friends: his pro-independence fellow travellers from JxCat. His anger was in response to the latest media leak from the Catalan coalition cabinet which the two parties form: the draft of the de-escalation plan which the government is proposing for the coming months. Moments earlier, the vice president's staff had confirmed to ElNacional.cat that the ERC ministers had walked out on the executive meeting that was intended to decide on the new measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus. It marked yet another eruption of the Catalan government's internal crisis, patched up again later in the day, when the two parties resheduled the key Covid meeting for tonight.
The meeting this Wednesday morning was being attended by representatives of Procicat, the government emergency committee responsible for implementing the Covid plans. The first to leave the meeting was Aragonès. And according to sources from his party, he was followed by the rest of his ministers.
At that point, voices in the ERC (Catalan Republican Left) were asserting that they would not sit down with their government colleagues, in JxCat (Together for Catalonia), until "the leaks stop and there is a loyalty pact." A gesture which they justified in terms of the need for "respect for the public, and responsibility." Because, they added, "it's about saving lives and not creating more confusion for the Catalan public." The ERC anger with the leaks they attribute to JxCat reached the point at which the vice president asked the media not to “publish them”. The party believes that the goal of its Puigdemont-led partners "is to frustrate the measures" devised by the Catalan health ministry, which is led by ERC representatives.
The disqualification from office of Catalan president Quim Torra placed ERC at the head of the government, at least until the elections next February when the cards are dealt again. A responsibility that has coincided with the worsening of the Covid-19 situation in Catalonia. With the second wave, relations between the coalition partners have tensed once again.
JxCat, "perplexed"
"We don't plan to enter this question, because it doesn't contribute anything," was the immediate response on the subject from JxCat to this newspaper. They did, however, say they were “perplexed” over the ERC version of what happened at this morning’s meeting.
JxCat's narrative was different. The Puigdemont-led party denied that all the ERC ministers involved in the management of the Covid crisis left - but rather it was only Aragonès.
Patched up
This morning, minutes after the walk-out, Aragonès told Parliament: "We'd rather make decisions that cost us votes than lives." After a day of contacts between the two governing parties, it was finally agreed that the meeting due to discuss anti-Covid measures would be held once today's parliamentary session is over, at around 9:30pm. It will be attended by vice-president Aragonès and the majority of the cabinet, plus health department leaders Marc Ramentol and Josep Maria Argimon.
Both parties agreed, provisionally, that they will not report on the results of the meeting until noon tomorrow, once the technical leaders of Procicat validate, in the morning, the plan agreed by the government. From there, the de-escalation plan that Catalonia will apply over the next two months will definitely emerge.
Political eyes on February 14th
The confrontation within the Catalan coaltion government is no secret. Over the past few days, several ministers have fanned the flames via leaks, tweets and public statements. Visibly incensed, Pere Aragonès today called for "individual interests" to be set aside in all aspects connected to management of the pandemic. He did so without directing the message specifically to his JxCat partners, but it was scarcely necessary.