Carles Puigdemont agrees to bury the processes towards independence, as it was understood until 2017. By putting the resolution of the Catalan conflict at a dialogue table, Puigdemont assumes his return to bilateralism against the Government of Spain. Of course, he needs an alibi for his bases, which is to deny in the text that they are renouncing the unilateral path of independence. But they say that in politics creating a commission, or in this case a party table with the PSOE, is the best way to freeze an issue so that it does not prevent other agreements.
So Puigdemont will be able to give it all the epic he wants with the idea of the international verifier, who will monitor it, or by repeating the expression “historical.” When one sits down to negotiate he is tacitly freezing the possibility of setting up another October 1st, or of resuming the unilateral declaration in Parliament. And Junts has agreed to sit down and talk with the PSOE. The independence movement will ask for an economic agreement and the return of the Catalan companies that left during the processes, 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. That is, very similar to what ERC has been doing at its table since 2020.
Although the renunciation of unilateralism is even more evident for a reason of timing: The amnesty agreed with the PSOE – which is the true payment for this investiture – is not going to be resolved overnight. Puigdemont is aware of the judicial journey of months or years that those who benefit from the aforementioned law face. They have taken great care of it in the agreement, including what they call lawfare —judicial persecution. While the amnesty is being voted on in Congress or resolved in the courts, they will not be committing the same illegal acts that they want to get rid of precisely judicially.
The question is what will happen when the independence movement realizes that Junts is also refusing to achieve anything related to breaking with its votes. Esquerra collapsed on March 28 and June 23, after the pardons, amid widespread frustration because its voters increasingly saw the dream of their own State or the referendum as further away. And the truth is that the fear of more prison sentences continues to dissuade its leaders from unilateralism: that is why they have not taken another step towards secession since 2017.
Although it seems that the long term does not matter to Puigdemont as much as the short term. His only obsession today is to beat Oriol Junqueras in the Catalan elections next year. That’s why they had to take so long to sign the agreement: They needed to appear different from their rivals, despite achieving the same thing. But stories are one thing, and facts are another. Puigdemont has given up, and now he trusts everything to the possibility of opening a new screen in Catalonia, after burying his idea of independence. He already resigned from the referendum on September 5 when it was not a red line to forge an agreement, and that is why Pedro Sánchez will be invested.
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