Ciudadanos expects an “imminent” agreement in the next few hours on the possible pact with the Popular Party to compete together in the next elections, according to sources from the CS executive. Both parties have been negotiating for days to participate together in the Catalan elections on May 12 and the European elections on June 9. The national leadership of Ciudadanos, through its general secretary, Adrián Vázquez, is piloting the talks with the PP, but has encountered resistance in public and private from the leader of the party in Catalonia, Carlos Carrizosa, reluctant to reach an agreement. that implies the integration of Ciutadans into the popular lists, as demanded by Alberto Núñez Feijóo's team. The last word is held collectively by the National Citizens Committee, made up of 30 leaders, among whom are both Vázquez and Carrizosa. The leadership has “urgently” convened said body in the next few hours, as confirmed by several party sources. From Brussels, Feijóo has referred to the agreement. “Our house is open,” said the PP leader.
Vázquez traveled to Madrid this Thursday to participate in an informative breakfast organized by Nueva Economía Forum. “There is a will to agree (…) If there is a time when we must form a common front, it is now,” she stated at the event. During his speech, the MEP and president of the Legal Affairs Committee in the European Parliament also criticized the concessions of Pedro Sánchez's Government to the Catalan independence forces and against the processing of the amnesty law. “We are at a moment in the history of Spanish democracy in which we must make a broad front both in Catalonia and in Europe to prevent it from becoming bigger,” Vázquez added. The MEP beat former CS parliamentary spokesperson Edmundo Bal in primaries for the party's leadership in January last year.
The conversations between the Institutional Deputy Secretary of the PP, Esteban González Pons, and Vázquez had already been very advanced for months, thinking about the European elections in June. However, as the Catalan elections were brought forward, the strategy was modified to seal a global agreement. Génova seeks the complete “reunification” of two of the three right-wing parties that split with the entry of Ciudadanos and Vox, although the party led in the past by Albert Rivera and Inés Arrimadas now barely has any electoral revenue. From Brussels, Feijóo has urged Ciudadanos to decide in the coming days if he wants to “lead” definitively to the PP.
The obstacle that both the Popular Party and CS have encountered is the spokesperson in the Parliament of Citizens, Carlos Carrizosa, who resists a formula in which his formation is diluted in the acronym of the PP. On the other hand, Genoa flatly refuses a coalition. Both directions maintain maximum secrecy about the final terms of the pact. Along these lines, Carrizosa has made various statements in public and has granted an interview to The world this Thursday showing his rejection of the course of the talks.
The war opened by Carrizosa has received a response at the informative breakfast attended by Vázquez. “People in stressful situations get nervous, it is normal, it is natural and that cannot be criticized because it happens to all of us,” Vázquez said in this regard and attributed the speaker's pulse in the Parliament to emotional circumstances. where Ciutadans maintains the only six regional deputies of the party. Faced with Carrizosa's affront, Vázquez has stressed on several occasions that he is the person most responsible for the negotiations. In the background there is also the ideological issue, since Ciutadans and Carrizosa are social democratic, while the current leadership is liberal. In any case, it will be the National Committee that decides by vote. The former vice mayor of Madrid, Begoña Villacís, still remains on this body.
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The closing of the agreement is also crucial for Feijóo, since in the meantime tension increases in the PP for not confirming a candidate for the Catalan elections. The leader of the Popular Party is reluctant to confirm the leader of the Catalan PP, Alejandro Fernández, who is keeping an eye on the national leadership to repeat as head of the list. The PP leadership has been conveying for days the idea that its “priority” is to integrate Ciudadanos under its acronym to show an “image of unity” as a “reference of constitutionalism” in the face of the amnesty supported by the PSC, and then to appoint a candidate. Therefore, if this pact is finalized shortly, as the Ciudadanos leadership wishes, Feijóo will let him have that shield.
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