Two rhetorical figures spice up the negotiations for the investiture of Pedro Sanchezellipsis and hyperbole, while a third warms up on the band, the circumlocution. In hyperboles, in whom he launches the most exaggerated outburst, the right competes with the old guard of the PSOE and the last to jump on the bandwagon has been Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra. But Ellipse, to the intentional omission of a word to provoke certain effects in the recipient, no one beats the acting President of the Government, and already officially a candidate for re-election. Words are crucial in any political agreement, for what they say, for the way in which they say it and, above all, for what they do not say and must be read between lines. Everything indicates that we are heading towards a semantic goldsmith pact in which the terminology will be decisive in aligning the half-dozen parties on which the investiture now depends… and the entire legislature.
Let’s open the dictionary.
In his own way, without saying the word so that he could claim that he never promised it if everything fails, Sánchez has made it clear this week that there will be amnesty. He has only verbalized it to distance himself from Sumar’s proposal, revealed by EL PERIÓDICO. The president admits that the law is being negotiated and assures that the PSOE will announce it when it is closed. Perhaps even then he will not have to pronounce the term again because it will not be baptized in the same way as that 1977 law that catalyzed the transition from Francoism to democracy. It is these reminiscences that discourage socialists from accepting the concept of amnesty in the current context, assuming (even in public) that the norm will go directly to the constitutional Court. Alternatives are handled such as ‘criminal oblivion‘ either ‘penal relief‘, but ERC and Junts emphasize that they do not want what happened in 2017 to be forgotten nor are they satisfied with a mere reduction of sentences, but rather the objective is to extinguish all criminal responsibility to completely remove the conflict from the courts and bring it to a resolution. political table.
This word is pronounced by everyone, but it does not have the option of appearing black on white either. Sánchez has been exhaustive: there will be “self-determination referendum” because it fuels the fracture instead of “coexistence”. But that does not mean rejecting any type of consultation. ERC proposes returning to the 2019 box, that is, to the first investiture pact that the PSOE leader signed with them. That commitment pivoted around a dialogue table whose agreements would then be submitted to “consultation of the citizens of Catalonia“. It would not be a referendum, but a binding consultation, and independence would not be voted on (red line for Sánchez), but rather a new fit for Catalonia in Spain. A pact would be voted on, and not a rupture. The Government will shortly receive the first report from the Consell Acadèmic per l’Acord de Claredat, which could ratify the viability of this formula.
Pardons and the end of sedition have already come off the table, but now ERC wants to move on to the referendum phase. Before that, the name of the table itself is also in question, among other reasons because Sánchez could find Junts sitting opposite. Aragonès claimed in this newspaper that the political status of Catalonia It is negotiated only by the Government, but the post-convergents, as essential to govern, could claim their share at the table. JxCat was excluded from it when Aragonès vetoed leaders who were not members of the Government, and ended up disdaining both the republican strategy and the legitimacy of this forum. Since both will now have to eat their words, he has to find a circumlocution. Esquerra tries to make the label of ‘negotiation table‘, but Junts boasts that they do not negotiate, but rather “they charge in advance”. In fact, they did not leave a written record of their agreement to support the PSOE in the Congress Board to be able to boast that while ERC signs words, JxCat achieves actions.
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The PSOE already got tangled a few years ago in the skein of the mediator, another insurmountable wall because it implies recognizing that the two parties to the conflict are at the same level. But, in reality, he himself Carles Puigdemont has diluted the word. “The total lack of trust between the parties makes a verification mechanism for compliance with agreements is essential and must operate from the beginning of the negotiations,” he stated at the conference on September 5. There was no trace of the thorny term and, perhaps a more important detail, the ‘former president’ focused on the future, on ensuring that the agreements are fulfilled, and not so much in protecting the dialogue. This way there would be no need to call him a mediator. PSOE and Junts are in charge of finding that neutral formula.
And to all this, what name will they give to the final agreement? If it were up to Sánchez, I would include the word ‘coexistence‘, which he repeats almost as many times as he omits ‘amnesty’. ‘Reunion‘ and ‘concord‘ are also heard quite a bit in socialist mouths. But those voices grate too much on pro-independence ears. Accepting that we have to live together again means admitting that one day, six years ago, our coexistence broke up.