Meeting of governments

It may have looked good for the cam­eras but there was very lit­tle con­tent and zero progress. The much an­tic­i­pated meet­ings be­tween the Cata­lan pres­i­dent and the Span­ish prime min­is­ter took place yes­ter­day, along­side a par­al­lel meet­ing of key min­is­ters, end­ing with a “cour­tesy” photo for the media. What was an op­por­tu­nity to pro­vide a min­i­mum im­pulse to di­a­logue be­tween the two ex­ec­u­tives, ended up as a bat­tle be­tween ad­vi­sors and com­mu­ni­ca­tion teams on how to spin the en­coun­ters.

Sources from the Mon­cloa ad­mit­ted there was no order of the day and they strug­gled to give the meet­ing be­tween Quim Torra and Pedro Sánchez im­por­tance, while that be­tween vice pres­i­dent Pere Aragonès and pres­i­dency min­is­ter Elsa Ar­tadi, on the one hand, and deputy prime min­is­ter Car­men Calvo and ter­ri­to­r­ial pol­icy min­is­ter Mer­itx­ell Batet, on the other, was in­ci­den­tal.

Ear­lier in the day, Ar­tadi had ad­mit­ted on the radio that lit­tle was ex­pected from the meet­ing, and the main aim was to get a com­mit­ment from the Span­ish gov­ern­ment not to reim­pose di­rect rule on Cat­alo­nia, which the union­ist PP and Cs par­ties have been call­ing for. Ar­tadi also called for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of mech­a­nisms for both gov­ern­ments to co­or­di­nate.

With the exact arrange­ments for the meet­ings only being re­solved at the last minute, the day began with a pri­vate meet­ing be­tween Torra and Sánchez, who then joined the other meet­ing, spend­ing a total of just an hour and a half to­gether.

Mean­while, the Span­ish gov­ern­ment made the con­tents of the cab­i­net meet­ing due to take place today in Barcelona pub­lic, with the only issue af­fect­ing Cat­alo­nia being the au­tho­riza­tion of con­tracts to carry out work on pub­lic roads for 112 mil­lion euros.