Spain does better when it agrees than when it fights. This is the conclusion I have drawn after reading Enric Juliana’s book, Spain, the pact and the fury (Arpa Editores). Now we are in the cane fight stage. Although in the second part of the year a window of opportunity will open to recover the pact. Three years without an Amnesty law and without elections on the horizon.
Tension only leads to economic paralysis and corruption. We must not forget that Pedro Sánchez came to power thanks to a motion of censure based on the corruption of the PP. The Gürtel case, about irregular financing. And the President of the Government could end up leaving through the same path with which he arrived at Moncloa. The corruption of the Koldo case, which has just begun and in which there are suspicions of irregular financing practices of the socialists.
It is logical that anger leads to corruption. The parties, in the midst of their mutual attacks, exaggerate any irregularity, twisting reality to unsuspected extremes. Thus we are seeing that as a collateral effect the alleged influence peddling of Begoña Gómez, wife of the President of the Government, has appeared, and in response to such attack, the fiscal irregularities allegedly committed by the partner of the President of the Madrid Government, Isabel Díaz Ayuso .
Between them they have created a climate that degrades all of Spanish politics, giving the impression of widespread corruption that is not true.
But as the governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos, states, the consequences of this tension damage the economic situation. In his opinion, it is necessary to agree between the two major parties on structural reforms.
A specific case is the fiscal adjustment program that the Government has to present to the EU and which will be the basis of the budgets for a decade. To the extent that it is a strategy that affects different governments, this plan to reduce the deficit and debt should be agreed upon by the two major parties.
The same happens with aid from Brussels or defense spending that has been committed to NATO, not to mention reindustrialization or technological development. More Jordi Hereu are needed and there are plenty of Oscar Puentes, whose main mission seems to be to add fuel to the fire.
It hasn’t always been like this. Juliana, in this compilation of articles from twenty years as a columnist in Madrid, a kind of modern Josep Pla, remembers that the moments of greatest prosperity have been the result of agreements. Spain emerged from the dictatorship thanks to the Moncloa pacts and the constitutional pact. There was an agreement between Zapatero and Rajoy for an express reform of the Constitution and to avoid intervention in the 2008 crisis. There was agreement on the abdication of the emeritus king and the end of ETA. The tension is not good for Catalonia or anyone.
