Carles Puigdemont agrees to bury the process towards independence that existed until 2017. By bringing the solution to the Catalan conflict to a dialogue table, Puigdemont assumes that he is returning to bilateralism against the Spanish government. Of course, an alibi is needed for its bases, which consists in denying in the text that they are abandoning the unilateral path to independence. But they say that in politics, forming a commission, or in this case a party table with the PSOE, is the best way to freeze an issue so that other agreements are not prevented.
So Puigdemont can give it as much epic as he wants with the idea of an international reviewer who will monitor it or by repeating the term “historical”. Sitting down to negotiate is tacitly blocking the possibility of setting another October 1 or resuming the unilateral declaration in Parliament. And Junts has agreed to sit down and talk to the PSOE. The independence movement will demand an economic agreement and the return of Catalan companies that withdrew from the country as part of the process, while the Socialists will defend the financing reform for Catalonia. Sánchez will say that the territorial solution is to develop the statute and Junts that a referendum must be called. This is very similar to what ERC has been doing at its table since 2020.
The abandonment of unilateralism becomes even more obvious due to time constraints: the amnesty agreed with the PSOE – the actual payment for this investiture – will not be resolved overnight. Puigdemont is aware of the months or years of legal journey that awaits those who benefit from the aforementioned law. They have taken great care of this in the agreement, including what they call lawfare – legal prosecution. While the amnesty is voted on in Congress or decided in court, they will not commit the same illegal acts that they are currently seeking to expunge in court.
The question is what will happen when the independence movement realizes that Junts also refuses to achieve anything that has to do with a break with his votes. Esquerra collapsed on March 28 and June 23 after the pardons amid widespread frustration as his voters saw the dream of statehood or the referendum increasingly distant. And the truth is that the fear of more prison sentences continues to deter their leaders from unilateralism: that is why they have not taken another step towards secession since 2017.
Although it seems that for Puigdemont the long term is less important than the short term. His only obsession today is to beat Oriol Junqueras in next year’s Catalan elections. That’s why the signing of the agreement had to take so long: they had to be different from their competitors even though they achieved the same thing. But stories are one thing, facts are another. Puigdemont has given up and now has full confidence in the possibility of opening a new canvas in Catalonia, having buried his idea of independence. He already withdrew from the referendum on September 5th when there was no red line to forge an agreement and that is why Pedro Sánchez is invested.
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