After meeting with Pedro Sánchez this Monday in the Congress in Madrid, Inés Arrimadas (Cs) hasn't moved from her demand: a grand coalition of PSOE, PP and Cs (who in fact are unnecessary to the arithmetic) to avoid a government including Podemos and with the support of pro-independence Catalan party ERC. Both the acting prime minister and Pablo Casado (PP), however, have again shut down the idea.
In a press conference after the meeting, Arrimadas said that "Mr Sánchez has insisted that he's got an agreement with Podemos" and isn't going to move. Nonetheless, the Cs Congress spokesperson said that "if he corrects his course, this constitutionalist path can be opened". She contrasted it to the "radical government of insomnia" with Pablo Iglesias and ERC. "I hope that Mr Sánchez reconsiders," she said.
For his part, Pablo Casado, who had met with Sánchez earlier also rejected what he called the "Arrimadas path" of a grand coalition, saying it would be a bluff. He said there are two options to "avoid ERC's support". The first, PSOE governing alone with the support of Unidas Podemos and Cs; the second, PSOE governing alone with the support of left-wing and regionalist parties and Cs' abstention. "We're holding out the hand to governability, but we cannot give support to an investiture with Podemos," he said.
In her meeting with Sánchez, Arrimadas gave him a document with "four pillars" for the agreement and expression her party's "willingness to concede". The first point, to agree upon state pacts, a budget and the most important laws between "constitutionalist parties". The second, a national pact for education. The third, that "the [financial] crisis shouldn't fall again on the middle class". And fourth, electoral reform to introduce a minimum Spain-wide vote share threshold which would leave parties like ERC out of the Congress.