The legislature’s first litmus test for Pedro Sanchez It has resulted in a striking result, although only relatively unexpected given the background. After days of emphatic refusal on the part of Together for Cataloniaan ‘in extremis’ agreement has made possible the approval of two of the royal decrees subject to validation, the omnibus decree and the anti-crisis measures decree. There are some aspects of the agreement that have to do with the broad content of what is regulated in them, but the truth is that the content of the PSOE-Junts agreement far exceeds them.
Junts has managed to get people talking about a mechanism that provides fiscal incentives to companies that left Catalonia in 2017 (no sanctions if they do not return as they had advanced) and surprisingly it seems to have started two aspirations long claimed by the Catalan nationalist parties, the publication of fiscal balances as well as the delegation of powers in matters of immigration, an exclusive competence of the State party whose management, in accordance with the Statute, falls on the Generalitat.
It is this announcement that, in addition to doubts about its constitutionality, generates more questions that must be resolved. It is unknown how a transfer that affects various ministries and ministries that until this Thursday knew nothing will be carried out. And how can a management that affects international border management and to aspects, such as the distribution of new arrivals to territories such as the Canary Islands, which requires exercises of interterritorial solidarity. But beyond the operational and jurisdictional doubts, the agreement formula once again puts on the table the irregularity that means that Junts can attribute, based on its weight in governance, a representativeness of the interests of Catalonia that does not correspond to its electoral weight as the fourth Catalan party in the last general elections (and in the opposition in the Parliament). That what was agreed in Madrid was the opposite of what was voted in the Parliament, which rejected a similar proposal from Junts, and was agreed behind the backs of who should apply it, the Government of the Generalitat, can be sold as a party victory. Against his political opponents, but also against the Catalan institutions. The statements from Junts about the (remote) possibility that a transfer will have a direct impact on the granting of residence and work permits, expulsions and deportation of repeat offenders (and specifically, linking this problem more to immigration than to the necessary reform of the Penal Code) also sends worrying signals about how this issue can become a central axis of the next Catalan electoral campaign.
The Sánchez Government can draw some lessons from what happened. Without having a solid majority royal decrees cannot be abused. By configuring them in the omnibus format, in an incoherent thematic mix, there is the risk of upsetting multiple bands, multiplying possible vetoes and having to deal with random complaints. And, finally, it can be conveyed to public opinion that the price of staying in power is a constant auction with agreements against the clockwithout deliberation, without dialogue and in secret, something that the Junts spokesperson has boasted about and that constitutes a full-fledged perversion of the democratic game no matter how much ‘peix al cove’ it may display.