Few meetings can have better prepared with more intermediaries and messengers than that held for more than four hours in Waterloo between presidents Carles Puigdemont and Artur Mas. On paper, there was only a single, large item on the agenda: the mutual recognition of the assets each one has to offer to organise once and for all a viable party after the PDeCAT fiasco, which nobody has ever taken seriously. The ballot boxes on 26th May showed two clearly opposing things. On the one hand, Junts per Catalunya's results in the municipal elections were bad, and there's no palliative allowing for a different reading. Esquerra Republicana took over historical fiefdoms of the former Convergència in many areas of Catalunya and only mayors with great individual influence managed to revert the trend.
On the other hand, Puigdemont triumphed in the European election, confirming he retains a good portion of his electoral pull. To put it another way, the problems are basically, for the leaders, within the party and not so much with the candidate. As both the results of the municipal and European elections had been seen coming for some time (especially the former), the agreement between the leaders of Junts per Catalunya that a course correction was needed was well-established. The municipal elections, in any case, showed the writing on the wall and led to a meeting which they'd had pending for a long time and which both of them were somewhat unenthusiastic about holding. Puigdemont and Mas have a curious relationship: exquisitely correct in public, respectful the one to the other in private, but they've talked very little since the former had to go into exile in Waterloo. Nothing, for example, like the relationship between president Quim Torra and Artur Mas which, in practise, is nonexistent by choice of Torra, who has not taken up any of the offers to meet with the former president.
That historical relationship between Puigdemont and Mas, the former being chosen by the latter in January 2016 to replace him as president let us not forget, was key for this Wednesday's meeting to be transparent, to pass without reproach and for the agreements to be easy. Mas's role will be defined over time: he won't be a primus inter pares with Puigdemont, who keeps his unquestionable leadership, but he'll have enough auctoritas to impose certain decisions closely focused on the party but not exclusively on Junts per Catalunya and he'll have open dialogue so he doesn't need a specific role. It's obvious that the return of Mas, if he ever really left, will have consequences. But it seems unlikely, given the mutual understanding both presidents showed this Wednesday, that the road map they have drawn up won't turn out well. Among the objectives that Puigdemont and Mas have set themselves is to not lose any of the assets who have recently joined JxCat.
One final thing: although this move obviously has an electoral component after ERC's victory in the municipal elections, the prospect of an election in Catalonia isn't just around the corner. Puigdemont and Mas don't want a new election this year and are counting on Esquerra, who so far haven't opposed it openly, being in agreement. Governing in such conditions of losing a parliamentary majority and lacking support to pass basic measures like a budget make it enormously complicated to continue a legislature. But the will, at least, is there.