“The best way to defend the Constitution is to put a stop to any unilateral bankruptcy,” he said after applying article 155 with the support of the PSOE in October 2017. “I will be consistent with the standardization policy in Catalonia, and I am already saying a lot,” he dropped on September 20. Between the two statements of Pedro Sanchez There is a temporal and political stretch. Six years in which we have gone from the entry into prison of the leaders of the ‘procés’ with a Moncloa under the leadership of the PP to the negotiation of a kind of amnesty with a PSOE that seeks to give continuity to its mandate to a power that it recovered in the 2018 motion of censure and that it now struggles to maintain. The dejudicialization has broken through by arithmetic necessity for governability, as well as the change in strategy of an independence movement surrounded by the courts. To the point that, now, with the already consummated failure of the investiture of Alberto Núñez Feijóothe PSOE and the independence parties enter a new unknown dimension with the exoneration of judicial cases at the epicenter.
Jail came before the DUI itself. Although the snowball of the judicialization of the ‘procés’ began to take shape after the consultation on November 9, 2014, it became big on October 1. The first indication was the arrests of senior Government officials ten days before the vote, but it ended up becoming evident with the imprisonment of the then leaders of the ANC and Òmnium, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart, on October 16, 2017. After them, came those of the main leaders of the ‘procés’ after the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (DUI) and the application of 155, while part of them chose to pack their bags before running the same luck. That the State’s response was by the way of the togas It was clear in that turbulent autumn that led to elections in which Ciutadans won, although the independence movement retained the majority.
Motion of censure against Rajoy and new relations
The political context changed eight months later due to an event totally removed from the ‘procés’: the Gürtel ruling against the PP, which ended up being the catalyst so that, despite the upheaval suffered by the independentistas due to the consequences of 1-O, ERC and the PDECat ended up being part of the equation that would lead Sánchez to triumph in a motion of censure. This was the PSOE leader’s first attempt to approach sovereignty. In his speech, he promised for the first time to renounce the territorial “battle” and opted for “reestablish” relationships between the Government and the Generalitat. This was the first link in the de-escalation, despite the fact that, almost at the same time, in Catalonia Quim Torra was sworn in as president, a firm defender of “confrontation” with the State that ended up being disqualified by the Supreme Court at the end of 2020 for late taking down a banner from the balcony of the Generalitat that asked for the freedom of the prisoners.
Trial and new elections
But the ladder still had too many steps to go. The start of the trial of the leaders of the ‘procés’ coincided with the approval of the first Sánchez’s budgets already as President of the Government, who were overthrown by ERC and the PDECat because the Government rejected the figure of a rapporteur who would act as a notary for the negotiation to end the political conflict. The prosecutor’s office asked 25 years in prison for Junqueras and between seven and 17 for the other defendants. With this whole scenario on the table, but also with the failure of the call of the PP, Ciutadans and Vox in the Plaza de Colón to protest against the dialogue with the independence movement, Sánchez decided to call elections.
Elections that had to be repeated due to lack of support in November, a month after the Supreme Court issued the judgment and imposed prison sentences of between 9 and 13 years on the leaders of the ‘procés’ for the crimes of sedition and embezzlement. A severe punishment to which the independence movement responded with protests that raised decibels and led to altercations – especially in Urquinaona – and the birth of Democratic Tsunami, which got thousands of pro-independence supporters to participate in a call to block Barcelona Airport. An action that was repeated the day after the general elections of November 10, cutting the border with France by highway. The motto of that demonstration was a call for negotiation: ‘Spain, sit and talk’ (Spain, sit down and talk), at the same time that the ‘procés’ was adding new judicial cases beyond the political leaders.
Despite having said in the campaign that “I couldn’t sleep” if I ruled alongside Pablo Iglesias, who would bet on penalizing the organization of referendums and who defended being able to bring Puigdemont to Spain to be tried, Sánchez forged the first coalition of democracy with Podemos and managed to be invested with the abstention of a reinforced ERC in the ballot boxes and with the ability to tip the balance in Congress. It was a arduous negotiation which culminated with the granting of a dialogue table, the recognition of the existence of a political conflict, the commitment of the PSOE to work for dejudicialization and the outline of a vote on an agreement. With the leaders of 1-O still in jail and extradition requests for those who left frustrated by the judge Pablo Llarenaa thaw began that would be cut short by the outbreak of the pandemic while the battle between ERC and Junts took its toll on the Palau de la Generalitat.
The most obvious symptoms of dejudicialization did not arrive until June 2021 and the granting of pardons to the imprisoned ‘procés’ leaders, already with Pere Aragones as ‘president’. The management of covid-19 postponed the dialogue between governments to address the conflict while at the same time pacts between the PSOE and ERC were being created not exempt from tensions to approve extensions of the state of alarm or many of the laws that have been flagship of the coalition Government, as well as the budgets. The fussing of the PP, Ciutadans and Vox and the attempts to encourage a citizen reaction against the measure of grace for the independentists it was in vain. But the pardons, which the Republicans did not demand until two years later because the great consensus of the independence movement was the request for an amnestylit the fuse in the relationship between ERC and Junts, which did not digest well not holding the presidency and which began to cultivate that Junqueras’ party had an agreement with the socialists “in exchange for nothing”. The division of the parties also began to permeate the movement.
Penal Code Reform
Related news
The second major episode after the pardons to undo the 1-O judicial cases came before the support that Sánchez needed to approve the 2023 budgets and be able to exhaust the legislature. Despite the clash between the Government and the independence movement, the spy scandal with Pegasus and the departure of Junts from the Government Just a year ago, the PSOE and ERC ended up agreeing on the reform of the Penal Code with the aim of reducing the sentences of those accused. The elimination of sedition was the main measure, but also the reform of the crime of public disorder and embezzlement, which was especially controversial. The Republicans reciprocated by approving the accounts. However, the blow came with the interpretation made by the Supreme Court of the reform, which was also highly criticized by Junts and by the pro-independence entities.
Sánchez had time until the end of this year to call the elections, but in a twist of script he precipitated them one day after the corrective and loss of institutional power suffered by the socialists in the regional and municipal elections on May 28, with Catalonia as the main exception. Objective: to dislodge a PP willing to forge alliances with Vox. Again, and against the odds, the leader of the PSOE resisted last July 23 after a campaign in which he came to consider Puigdemont as “an anecdote”. He did not win and was left behind Feijóo, but he withstood a challenge that most surveys considered lost. Of course, his investiture now requires the indispensable support of ERC and Junts – at the expense of the ‘former president”s decision since Waterloo – and of a amnesty which, until now, the socialists had rejected, in addition to some progress towards the referendum.