Pedro Sanchez and Pere Aragonès They have been given a new opportunity to dialogue. With the tension over Pegasus more parked than overcome, they will meet next Friday. The meeting is in itself good news. You should not have excessive expectations. The purpose is “dejudicialize” political life in Catalonia. Possibly the two parties do not understand it in the same way. For Sánchez, it means acting without the quietism of Rajoy, who left the Catalan portfolio first in the hands of the patriotic police and, later, of the judges who had to act by legal imperative if politics did not prevent the performance of certain acts. For Aragonès it means avoiding jail for some of his own who are still accused as a first step to advance towards amnesty and self-determination. The horizons being so diverse, it is possible that the shared path is short, perhaps only the one that is based on the negotiation of the State Budgets for 2023. All in all, the two presidents do well to go through it, although for both it also has costs in the short and medium term. In the long term, Sánchez knows that he is doing a service to Spain that dismantles the lie that feeds a part of the independence movement about the quality of Spanish democracy. And Aragonès knows that bravado will never achieve independence, and even less internationally recognized and compatible with the tradition of a democratic party like his.
From this trance, Sánchez could at most promote some legislative reform that coincides with the general interests of Spain, as can happen with the legal treatment of the crime of sedition indicated by the European courts or the extension of the guarantees of democratic control of police action. A democratic government cannot get anyone out of jail if it is not for a pardon after being sentenced. So that Aragonès, at most, what he could achieve is that the legislation empowers state lawyers and prosecutors to classify certain crimes with penalties that do not involve imprisonment. There is not much more to negotiate. But there would be more to offer. If Sánchez takes the step to better resolve the prosecution of crimes and the persecution of ideas in Spanish democracy, he should have guarantees that the independence movement takes some step to guarantee that it will not use the autonomous institutions to destroy the State that protects them and this has to be compatible with defending the ideas that are wanted. Is about fix what will not be done again: persecute political opponents from the State and destroy the State from the State.
This dialog window will be closed, in the best case, in December. To all of us who declare ourselves democrats, what interests us is that it ends without definitively closing any possibility of dialogue, because after the 2023 election year, the issues will still be there, even if others are in charge of managing them. The independence movement has fed on this affirmation according to which negotiation and agreements are only possible when a Catalan party is necessary to prop up the Government of Spain. persevere in dialogue Help dismantle this fallacy. And it’s the way for you in Catalonia the blocks are also definitely broken that have marked politics in recent years. Neither Spain nor Catalonia can afford it, and neither those who sit at the dialogue table today nor those who aspire to do so in the future cannot lose sight of that.