In politics, every proposal is accompanied by a context that can give it wings or can bury it under indifference. Hence, the ability of every politician is measured by the ability to capture the pulse of society before advancing ideas, especially if they are of apparent significance, such as the one presented by Pere Aragonès in the debate on general politics. In another context, his proposal for a ‘Clarity Agreement’, resurrecting the Canadian formula that sets the conditions for holding a referendum in accordance with the State, it would have been a knock. In the current climate that Catalonia is experiencing, it was received with indifference by most of the political groups, starting with the other two pro-independence formations. To understand the importance of the context, it is enough to imagine what it would have meant if this proposal had been put on the table Carles Puigdemont, in 2017, when the streets were his. There is no doubt that he would have cornered the Government of Mariano Rajoy even more. Instead, the independentistas went to the bush with an illegal referendum and a unilateral declaration of independence. With what they managed to deeply divide Catalan society and terrify the Europeans. Of those muds these muds. It is not surprising that Aragonès now has a credibility problem.
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Five years later, the Catalan president has returned to the so-called ‘right to decide’, with a proposal that avoids the abysmal differences that exist between the Spanish and Canadian constitutional contexts. He has done it as if nothing had happened since 2017. As if you could go back in time to start over without making the same mistakes. What then could have opened some perspective now rings hollow. Still ruse to save time which is, probably, the true objective of Aragonès. Hence the indifference of the majority, beginning with Salvador Ilha, who insisted on remembering that today’s concerns are others. In politics, what happens does not happen in vain, and trying to solve current problems with formulas that failed in the past usually gives bad results. What authority does the Catalan president have to propose what he himself rejected in 2017? Are the conditions for a self-determination referendum agreed with the State more favorable today? Is the independence movement stronger, or is it more divided? Is Europe up to the task of opening a new source of instability on its southern flank? Nothing justifies this turn, except the need to rearm the republican candidates at the gates of the municipal. Aragonès’s proposal did not appease the open war between separatists either. He didn’t even mean it. He may even have aggravated it by presenting it as an alternative source of legitimacy to October 1. A taboo subject. Laura Borras and Jordi Turull they welcomed the proposal with a grave face and Albert Batettthe spokesperson for Junts, stated that the alternative to 1-O is the decline of Catalonia.
The other problem with Aragonès’ speech is that of the impotence of the majority of the rulers in the face of the crisis. The proposals he presented to deal with the inflation, most of them reasonable, collide with a bewildered society. It is the same perception that corners Pedro Sánchez or that unhorsed Mario Draghi. For years, Catalan nationalism used its economic difficulties to fuel victimhood and swell independence. Aragonès returned to pull the fiscal deficit at times, but this argument no longer gives more than itself, despite the disasters of Rodalies. Throughout Europe, social unrest has other recipients, as has been seen in Italy. If Catalonia does not have the necessary means, it must demand them, but this does not justify disregarding the cohesion of a society that is hanging by a thread. In this context, pretending that the opening of another confrontation with the State will foster this cohesion is a fable. Although it is through a ‘clarity agreement’ that did not go down so badly a few years ago, since even Miquel Iceta gave him a certain ball, but that he has been buried by the ‘procés’. At least for a couple of generations.