What can we expect from the Catalan and Spanish presidents' summit?

The Catalan and Spanish presidents will meet on Thursday for the first time in over a year and what (if any) will be the outcome remains up in the air.

Quim Torra and Pedro Sánchez will sit at a table in the Catalan government's headquarters, in Barcelona, at 12pm, with the aim of setting up and kicking off the "bilateral negotiation table" between cabinets, which the Socialists committed to in exchange for pro-independence Esquerra's support to stay in power in Spain.

But things have been slightly blurred: last week, President Torra announced that once the 2020 budget was passed in parliament he would call a Catalan election, after tension within the pro-independence government.

Madrid reacted by saying they were going ahead with the summit between the presidents but postponed the negotiation table until the next Catalan government is in place. A few hours later they retracted; a meeting between cabinets will take place before the election, which may take place in the spring, but the fact that President Torra's days as chief of Catalonia look numbered might lead to both sides getting down to business after the election.

Yet, Torra and Sánchez will still meet on Thursday.

Content of the presidents' summit

The actual content of the meeting might be contentious. Torra reiterated last week that the pro-independence camp had agreed that he had to bring up "the exercise of the right to self-determination, the end of repression and amnesty." His cabinet's spokesperson, Meritxell Budó, added that "tackling a political solution" to the independence crisis would also be discussed.

Budó also rejected that the summit should tackle "sectorial" topics and it should rather focus on the independence issue. This was in response to Madrid saying that the meeting should deal with "urgent matters for Catalan society that need to be solved," such as the consequences of Storm Gloria. 

"We'll attend the meeting as always, with a constructive spirit, to listen to what the Catalan president has to say regarding all topics affecting Catalan current political affairs, not just political aspirations, but also the day to day," said Spain's executive spokesperson, María José Montero on Tuesday.

Who will attend

The compromise between both sides is that only Quim Torra and Pedro Sánchez will meet on Thursday. Yet, the Catalan government is skeptical and believes some Spanish ministers may also want to take part. “We have not considered that any member of the government other than the president would attend the meeting because that’s what the two presidents agreed,” said Budó on Tuesday. 

Outcome uncertain

President Torra expects that the two leaders agree on the format of the negotiation table between governments and possibly their timings or content. Montero however said that the date of a first ministers' meeting might not be announced on Thursday, but "in the coming days."

She also made it clear that resolutions from the talks would not be immediate: "We do not expect results in the short term."

The pact between the Socialists and Esquerra includes an agreement that Catalan citizens will have to vote on the outcome of the talks - and while the pro-independence camp hopes the agreement will move the country towards being an independent republic, Madrid makes it clear that what will be voted on is an “agreement that finds a way out of the situation, not on a split between Catalonia and Spain.” 

Previous meetings

One month after new cabinets in both Barcelona and Madrid were installed, their presidents met for a first official meeting in Madrid on July 9, 2018. And while the Spanish government described the encounter as "courteous" and "cordial," it also bluntly ruled out Torra's key demand for a binding referendum on self-determination.

Little progress was achieved in the following months. Yet, a second meeting was held on December 20, 2018, and the result was encouraging for the talks. They issued a joint statement committing to dialogue in order to find a way out of the independence crisis for the first time. 

“Even though [the governments] have notable differences on the origin, nature and way of solving [the conflict], they share, above all, their backing for effective dialogue that creates a political proposal that has the support of the Catalan society,” it read. 

Some further steps were taken in the following weeks, and the two cabinets reached an agreement to introduce a mediator in the talks in February 2019. Yet, this infuriated Spain’s right-wing parties and part of the Socialists, leading to the Spanish government to make a U-turn, reject the mediator and call a snap election after the pro-independence parties rejected to support it anymore in response. 

The election in Spain in April 2019 led to a further election in November as the congress was deadlocked for most of 2019, and Sánchez could not regain full power until January 2020. Pro-independence Esquerra’s support is still essential for Sánchez to have the numbers to govern.