In Spain's Congress of Deputies, it's time to get hold of a calculator. This Thursday's vote on the composition of the lower house's Bureau will be one of high tension and will have to be carried out with surgical precision. With the two blocs, those of the left and right, in a technical tie, the position of speaker, the figure who leads the third most powerful institution of the state, could go one way or the other. Or in between. And to decant the decision, the seven deputies of Together for Catalonia (Junts) seem to occupy the decisive seats. Without a name to replace current speaker Meritxell Batet as head of the Bureau, the parties regarded as part of the left-wing majority recognize that talks are taking place with the party founded by Carles Puigdemont, and they agree that the fact of negotiations being under way with Junts is already a "good sign", asserting that an electoral re-run would be bad business for everyone involved. No one wants to derail the vote and, until now, silence and discretion have prevailed on both sides.
Everyone's looking to Waterloo, the capital of Catalan exile. The cryptic opinion of Carles Puigdemont released in a tweet this Monday morning has rarefied the position of the Socialists (PSOE). The party's spokesperson and acting education minister, Pilar Alegría, replied to the Junts MEP that "dialogue and prudence may be more appropriate before talking about auctions of any kind", in reference to the tweet in which the exiled Catalan leader had written, three days before the constitution of the Spanish parliament, that "nervousness is growing, the auction [bids] are going up and speculation is increasing". The Socialists have maintained discretion, to the point that they are reluctant to confirm their candidate to preside over the Congress of Deputies, replacing Meritxell Batet, despite the fact that there is some information pointing to former Balearic president Francina Armengol. In fact, this Wednesday, the executive of the PSOE will meet to approve its candidacy and the parliamentary spokespeople and Pedro Sánchez will inject their parliamentarians with all the morale they can.
As for left-wing Sumar, which argues in favour of the PSOE presiding over Congress, it has Jaume Asens as the party's interlocutor with Junts. The former Congressional spokesperson wants to make use of his good relationship with the independence movement to seduce those of Puigdemont. In this context, those in Yolanda Díaz's party fear that there is too much "unnecessary noise" that could shatter the negotiation. Asens's successor in parliament, Marta Lois, has asked those involved to act "with the utmost discretion and determination" so that the talks "reach their goal". The Galician deputy has shown "concern" about the fact that there are groups that prefer to "maintain some unnecessary noise".
Apart from the PSOE and Sumar, the six deputies of the Basque pro-independence party EH Bildu have also recognized "constant contacts" with Junts, but the abertzales are cautious. "We've talked about it, but we won't take a position on what they must do", said spokesperson Mertxe Aizpurua when carrying out her formalities as a newly elected MP. All in all, the Basque pro-independence party subscribes to the optimism that a Bureau with a left-wing majority will be formed and it commits itself to working for "a progressive and plurinational government". They do not intend to get too picky or cause problems now that they have managed to win more representation than the other Basque nationalist party, the PNV, in the lower house. In fact, the abertzales do not give credibility to the possibility of the PNV presiding over Congress, as proposed by Coalició Canària.