This Thursday, in Catalonia there was no street party. The Congressional Commission was implementing the Amnesty law and the truth is that people here continued doing their thing as if nothing had happened, despite the political significance of forgiving the ‘procés’. My servant suspects that the instrumental nature that this law has for the signatories explains why the Catalans have not started playing the bongos. Furthermore, the uncertainties surrounding the rule are many, starting with the legal ordeal that it will go through in the Spanish and European courts.
In fact, the only funny thing is that it ties the destinies of Pedro Sánchez and Junts (read Carles Puigdemont) to the point that the departure of one of the two from the scene guarantees, without a doubt, the fall of the other. It would be a kind of symbiotic relationship in the style of sharks and remoras.
Only time will tell if the political move leads to “reconciliation” – whatever that concept means – or, on the contrary, ends up assuming that part of Catalonia that still daydreams about a republic returns to its old ways. That is not yet known. And note that the gesture of the outstretched hand goes poorly with Junts’ jubilant announcements calling for self-determination and independence since Thursday.
While the Amnesty law undertakes a complicated journey that could last months, the Basque elections will be held in between, with a Bildu ‘on fire’, and the Catalan elections in early 2025. Too early to uncork the cava.
I recognize that it is difficult to understand the criteria for forgiveness if it is not because there are many Catalans who want to turn the page of the ‘procés’ once and for all, recover normality and for Catalonia to finally get out of the quagmire of politics. There is no demoscopic rigor in these words, only a nose-to-the-street approach. Some of us may not feel especially pacified or reconciled and may accept the blank slate if it serves to dampen toxic passions.
Dampen is a verb that comes from mortiguar, that is, to pretend to be dead. In practice, it means stopping talk of amnesty and starting a new normal. As after the pandemic, this will be very similar to the old normality because it involves recovering legitimate demands that the ‘procés’ left in hibernation after appropriating them in a tortious manner.
I see no better way for Sánchez to make credible his esteem for Catalonia, the community that keeps him alive, by the way, than by opening up to improving regional financing, whether with a fiscal pact or a federal model. Now the main Catalan economic and business entities, around twenty, are asking for it again, the same ones that have not taken the bongos out of the closet for almost fourteen years.