Thirty-four years ago, in June 1988, Pasqual Maragall made arrangements with the United States government for the ships of the VI Fleet to return to the port of Barcelona. The Navy had suspended scales after an attack with hand grenades against a recreational club of the United States Organizations in the Plaza de Medinaceli, as a consequence of which an American sailor died. The perpetrator of the attack has not been clarified. The mayor asked Ambassador Reginald Bartholomew for the United States to lift the veto with a view to the 1992 Olympic Games. The promotion of Barcelona to the American public was one of the priorities of Maragall and his team. They made it.
In February 2003, Jordi Pujol traveled to the United States in the final stretch of his mandate. The Catalan nationalist leader wanted to conclude his twenty-three years as president of the Generalitat with a repairing gesture. He wanted to apologize to some North American interlocutors for the attitude of his party during the referendum campaign on Spain’s permanence in NATO. May 1986. He had not won in Catalonia with the silent support of Convergència, promoter of an effective word-of-mouth campaign to leave Felipe González in the minority. It was about making it clear that the socialists were not hegemonic in Catalonia even if they won the general elections and governed the largest municipalities.
In the midst of a journey of atonement to the United States, Pujol’s eyes widened when he learned that his Minister in Cap, Artur Mas, was willing to participate in the great demonstration that was being prepared in Barcelona against the imminent invasion of Iraq, with Pasqual Maragall in the front line. The Maragall of 2003, a candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat, continued to like the American tourists in Barcelona, ??but now he was also very interested in the vote of the young pacifists. But he didn’t want to lose to Maragall and the traditional converging base was not very enthusiastic about the Bush-Aznar duo with their feet on the table on a Texas ranch.
Years later, in 2016, Artur Mas, a character not used to losing, expressed some enthusiasm for the disruptive current that was coming from the Anglo-Saxon world. Neocatechumenals of independence, the convergents did not subscribe to the lyrics of Brexit and Trumpism, but they liked the music: a disruptive world could include the independence of Catalonia. It was at that time that some CDC exponents began to travel to Moscow, guided by the Italian Northern League.
Again, the panorama changes again. Barcelona is becoming an important strategic node of the Atlantic Alliance. The latest commercial traffic data certify that the Barcelona port is today the main receiver of North American liquefied gas in southern Europe. In the near future, Barcelona can supply two important gas pipelines: the Midcat (France) and an underwater line to Italy.
One of the first to grasp the change of direction was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Generalitat, Victòria Alsina, a convergent gene all her life, avowed Atlanticist. Classic patterns are back.
These are context notes, useful to locate the place occupied by the bad play performed yesterday by Laura Borràs in the Parliament of Catalonia: marginality.
