This text belongs to the newsletter ‘The Director’s Bulletin’, which is sent every Friday morning. If you want to receive it, sign up here.
Good morning,
In November 2018, five months after coming to power, Pedro Sánchez organized a lunch with different journalists to set his priorities in the legislature. I have reviewed the notes I took from that day and what caught my attention the most is that the president stated that among all his concerns, what worried him most was the economic situation and the political crisis in Catalonia. His insistence on talking about the unresolved Catalan problem was a revelation. He said that he would not tremble if he were forced to apply article 155 of the Constitution again, while he told us that his obligation as head of Government was to work to eliminate the tension that existed in Catalonia. . I remember that I was struck by the effort he put into establishing communication channels with the leaders of the Catalan independence movement, some of whom were already in prison and others had chosen to escape abroad.
Since then, Sánchez has not stopped working in favor of this reduction of inflammation and with that objective he first promoted pardons and then the controversial amnesty of these independence leaders. It must be recorded, of course, that in exchange they gave him the votes he needed to be sworn in as president. It is clear that he would have had much more merit in granting the measure without obtaining anything in return.
This great commitment by Sánchez for political normalization in Catalonia will have its definitive validation in the elections this coming Sunday. All the credit played and spent is invested in the triumph of Salvador Illa. If the PSC is capable of articulating a non-independence majority, bingo for the PSOE. And if, on the contrary, the independence movement renews its absolute majority and there is once again a secessionist president in the Plaza de Sant Jaume, all the energy and wear and tear that socialism has suffered in recent years will have been in vain. And Sánchez’s position will be greatly weakened less than a month before the European elections.
It is important to know who the winner is, but also the combinations that can be made between the various candidates. It is worth remembering that in the last general and Catalan elections, the winning force – the PP in Spain and the PSC in Catalonia – were not ultimately the forces that ended up governing. Or in the city of Barcelona itself, where Xavier Trias won, but Jaume Collboni governs. Therefore, pay attention to the agreements. And then the particular battles in each trench will also be important: if Junts will surpass ERC as the polls seem to predict, if the PP will be ahead of Vox, or who will have the most seats between the commons and the CUP. A really exciting Sunday.
In La Vanguardia we have followed all the different actors very intensively in the digital and paper editions. Here are the personal interviews with the different candidates -Salvador Illa, Pere Aragonès, Carles Puigdemont, Ignacio Garriga, Laia Estrada, Jéssica Albiach, Antonio Carrizosa and Alejandro Fernández- and the interventions they have had in the Barcelona Tribuna organized by the Economic Society Barcelonesa from Friends of the Country and La Vanguardia: Pere Aragonès, Salvador Illa, Alejandro Fernández, Jessica Albiach and Jordi Turull.
I invite you to carefully follow the election day this coming Sunday on our website, where, apart from real-time monitoring of the scrutiny, we will broadcast a special program starting at 8 p.m., with the intervention of all the journalists and analysts that we are following. this election campaign.
Happy Friday.
