Catalonia suffered almost two tsunamis fifteen years ago. The first was the crisis of 2008which caused the fall in the standard of living and expectations of a large part of the population. Including the eviction of citizens who could not pay their mortgages or rents. Protest movements emerged, which in 2015 led to Ada Colau to the mayor of Barcelona. And Colau has been a mayor who encouraged confrontation between the “progressives”, close to her social and ecological radicalism, and the “retrogrades”, supposed defenders of particular interests.
The second was the 2010 ruling of the Constitutional Court which, four years and many incidents later, annulled part of the 2006 Statute that had already been approved by referendum in Catalonia, which generated the radicalization of part of the nationalism that led to pro-independence majorities in the Parliament, to the illegal 2017 referendum and the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (DUI). Then, to the “vicarious” presidency. by Quim Torra.
And the two storms, Colau’s anti-capitalism and Puigdemont-Torra’s independence movement, although opposite, fed each other in their disregard for the rule of law. Catalonia moved away from normality and entered unknown territory. Almost two anti-system tsunamis, with the CUP at the spearhead of both.
But both have been losing strength. In the city council, the Colau-Collboni pact of 2019 reduced the anti-system virulence. In 2021, the Catalan elections placed the PSC as the first party and the new president Aragonès, from ERC, took a more realistic line. And more than a year ago the independence coalition in the Generalitat broke up.
But whether it is due to the passage of time, due to “de-inflammation”; and the pardons of the Sánchez Government, or only for 155, as Rajoy says, forgetting the violence of 2019 after the Supreme Court’s convictions, The tension has decreased and the PSC, a constitutionalist and Catalan party, has won the municipal elections in May and the general elections in July. In these he had more votes than all the independentists combined.
And two last facts indicate that Catalonia is moving towards normality. They have just been fulfilled the first 100 days of Mayor Collboni, who was elected by an unimaginable confluence of the PSC, the Comuns and the PP. A carom that ended the Colau era. And now Collboni emphasizes respect for public space and security (order) and the review, without radical rupture, of green axes and housing policies.
From protest and confrontation we have moved to a pragmatic mayorjealous of municipal independence but who knows that the future of Barcelona requires a serious dialogue with many sectors. The return to cooperation with the economic world is pointed out -and with the Government of Madrid- of Pasqual Maragall and Joan Clos, who allowed the 92 Olympic Games and the great transformation of Barcelona.
The new mood has been seen in the fact that Collboni, the day before making his first balance sheet flanked by his municipal team, gave a conference at the Cercle d’Economía, an entity with a broader vision than the employers’ associations, and the message was: dialogue to achieve harmony and commitments.
And what happened in civil society is even more relevant, in the very recent elections in ‘la Cambra’, the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona. Four years ago, the ANC’s pro-independence candidacy swept away, putting the radical as president. Joan Canadell, who later resigned to try to be a star deputy for Junts. His successor, Mònica Roca, softened the forms.
But the most significant change has just occurred now. In the new elections the ANC has had only 21 elected compared to the 31 of the other, politically transversal candidacy, that prioritizes the defense of the interests of companies and recover the abandoned role in the Chamber of Spain. And Canadell has not been re-elected in his union.
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The new president will be Josep Santacreu, former director of a health insurance company who was vice president of FemCat. He is not, therefore, an enemy of nationalism, but he prioritizes the economic role of the Chamber.
Catalonia has emerged from the tsunami and is recovering normality. A normality that – we must not forget –has always been marked by Catalanism.