Doubts in the PNV about its European candidacy

Jokin Lecumberri, Basque Country

The 'jeltzales' rule out any alliance with the Crida Nacional.

The Basque Nationalist Party is still not clear, they doubt about the European electoral brand that will use in these elections, pending, largely, how their former Catalan allies resolve their own unknowns.

The key to the future of the European coalition, insist on Sabin Etxea, is in Catalonia and as long as the post-Convergència space does not clarify with what brand is presented and who its candidates are - Carlos Puigdemont has been the last to run - the PNV will not make a decision .

Uncertain future
Canary Coalition does not want to share with the Catalan separatists

The ideal for Basque formation, recognize the PNV, would be to repeat the formula of five years ago with the then Convergència, Canary Coalition (CC) and Commitment by Galicia, a sum that is already clear that it will not be reissued in full, since that CC has already warned that it is not willing to share with the Catalan separatists.

What is clear inside the "jeltzale" is that in no case will it ally with the Crida Nacional and the Puigdemont positions. The relations between the former Catalan president and the Basque leaders cooled after the pro-independence yearning, which the PNV tried to avoid until the last minute. "We do not want to bring forward events because there is a long way to go," said party sources, who insist that in the context of Catalan uncertainty "anything can happen".

The words of the last week of PDECat president, David Bonvehí, in which he took for granted an electoral agreement with the PNV to participate in the European elections, are interpreted in Bilbao as a way of publicly pressuring and even forcing Puigdemont to move away of the candidacy.

Basque formation has already closed deals with Galicians and Canaries. But the latter have included in the agreement an exclusion clause: if the Catalans go, they withdraw.

European elections

The Canaries hope that the Catalan separatists will resign to reissue the coalition
Canary Islands Coalition sources assured La Vanguardia that, however, today they do not rule out that they will end up appearing alongside the Basque and Galician nationalists because they foresee that the Catalan separatists will finally resign to reedit the electoral coalition with which they participated in 2014 .

While the question is cleared, the PNV will meet in Euskadi in two weeks with the leaders of the Canary Coalition, a meeting that will have all its attention on how the internal tensions of the Catalan independence movement are resolved.

https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20190123/454268702126/pnv-candidatura-elecciones-europeas-crida-nacional-carles-puigdemont.html