A high level meeting. The presidents of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), Lluís Llach, and Òmnium Cultural, Xavier Antich, met this Monday to begin the new phase that is emerging between the two main NGOs in the Catalan pro-independence world. It's just over a week since musician and activist Llach took over the ANC presidency from Dolors Feliu, and so today's encounter marks the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders. They took the opportunity to address the current political situation, as well as the main objectives they share and possible routes for collaboration from now on. They were accompanied by their respective vice presidents: the new number two of the ANC, Nohemí Zafra, and the Òmnium vice president, Marina Gay.
Translation: "The president of the Assembly, Lluís Llach, together with the vice president, Nohemí Zafra, have met at the entity's headquarters with the president and second vice-president of Òmnium, Xavier Antich and Marina Gay. The first meeting of the new National Secretariat with Òmnium has served to discuss the current political moment, the main objectives of the two entities, and the coincident paths that must allow for close collaboration."-@assemblea
"The president Xavier Antich and vice president Marina Gay have met with the new president and vice president of the Assembly Lluís Llach, together with the vice president, Nohemí Zafra. We talked about the current political moment, the main shared goals and the coincident ways of collaboration."- @omnium
Llach was elected president on June 1st, after his appointment had been blocked the previous weekend despite repeated attempts, due to a lack of consensus. After finally gaining the presidency, he received broad support from across the independence movement. One of those who congratulated Lluís Llach was, indeed, Xavier Antich, who remarked that the current situation "forces us to strengthen all the structures of civil society on the way to national liberation". "In the common goal, from Omnium we will always be there", he remarked on Twitter.
A relevant day
The meeting did not take place on any ordinary Monday, quite the opposite. Precisely today, the reverberations of yesterday's European election day were felt, after the voting for MEPs left Junts as the second largest party in Catalonia and ERC as the third, with even these results having been achieved without much margin for error and far below the PSC. The two pro-independence parties, in fact, lost almost 1 million votes between them, a significant setback that comes after the Catalan election on May 12th that also showed the loss of mobilization of the pro-independence electorate.
This Monday was, however, also marked by an important appointment at the Parliament of Catalonia, where the chamber's parliamentary groups had to elect a new speaker and Bureau. After maximum uncertainty until the last moment, Junts, ERC and the CUP finally agreed to choose former minister Josep Rull for this position, replacing Anna Erra. After the pro-independence parties have failed to agree on numerous occasions in recent times, this time they managed not only to reach agreement, but also to impose their will in Parliament, despite only having 59 votes in favour, far from the absolute majority of 68.