Third meeting ends without a firm deal

The third meeting between the deputy prime minister, Carmen Calvo, and Catalan vice president, Pere Aragonès, with the presidency minister and government spokeswoman, Elsa Artadi, took place yesterday in Barcelona but made little progress on the issue of the political conflict between Catalonia and Spain.

The meeting ended with another commitment to continue talking and with both sides limiting themselves to saying that the encounter, which began a 5pm in the economy department in a “constructive climate”, served to make progress on setting up a new forum for political parties to tackle the issue of the conflict, and a commitment to continue working together through the Spain-Catalonia bilateral committee.

In the last meeting, in Madrid last week, both sides committed to setting up a forum for political parties, with the Catalan government calling for state parties to be involved, not just Catalan groups, as one like that already exists and will meet next week. The Catalan government also wants the new forum of political parties to include neutral observers and for it to serve as a the basis for agreeing on a referendum on self-determination.

There were few images from the meeting on January 17, and yesterday’s meeting also took place surrounded by an air of secrecy and out of the media focus. The background to the meeting is the Spanish government’s interest in getting the PDeCAT and ERC pro-independence parties to support the budget for 2019, which has a deadline of February 8 for parties to put forward amendments. Meanwhile, the Catalan government is looking for a gesture from the Spanish executive towards self-determination and the issue of the jailed leaders facing trial over the 2017 independence bid.