Spain and Catalonia: The Takeaways From the Newly Launched Negotiating Table
First of all, my apologies for this week’s shorter-than-usual newsletter. Family health matters have kept me away from my computer the last few days. I will make it up to you next week!
It was the most expected political event of the week. After a first attempt in February 2020, thwarted by the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic to our lives, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Catalonia’s regional leader Pere Aragonès met on Wednesday in Barcelona at the Palau de la Generalitat, the seat of government of the north-west region, to inaugurate the long-awaited negotiating table following the 2017 failed unilateral secession bid.
🤔 A reminder:
The unauthorised independence referendum staged in Catalonia in 2017 and organized by the regional government, run by the conservative Carles Puigdemont, led to the activation of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, which allows the government to take control of a region that is breaching the law.
Following the short-lived declaration of independence, Puigdemont and two other members of the Catalan government fled Spain to avoid prosecution. Those who remained in Spain were arrested and given long jail sentences for sedition and misuse of public funds.
Last June, nine of the jailed separatist leaders were given pardons by the central government, a measure that has contributed greatly to increasing the willingness of Catalan political leaders to sit at the negotiating table.
While the move on Wednesday is the most serious attempt yet to thaw the relationship between the two governing bodies, the task ahead will be daunting since the starting point of both delegations are too far apart.
Pere Aragonès, a moderate independence politician whose party, the left-leaning Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia), is no longer supporting a unilateral bid at independence, attended the meeting with two non-negotiable goals—a general amnesty for independence leaders prosecuted for their political actions, including fugitive Puigdemont, and holding a new referendum on independence agreed upon with the Spanish government.
Pedro Sánchez rejected those two goals. “We live together and need to decide together. Anything that affects Spain must be decided amongst all Spaniards”, he said at a press conference after the meeting.
But despite their starkly conflicting positions, they have decided to “continue working together unhurriedly but at a steady pace with no deadlines,” Sánchez told the media.
From now on, negotiations will be led by Catalan presidency minister, Laura Vilagrà, and Catalan business minister, Roger Torrent. Representing the central government’s delegation are the minister of the presidency Félix Bolaños, territorial policy minister Isabel Rodríguez, culture minister Miquel Iceta, and second deputy prime minister, Yolanda Díaz.
😤 The Right-Wing on Both Sides is Fuming
The Spanish right-wing is outraged at the negotiating table.
On the one hand, Together for Catalonia (JxCat), the other half of the ruling coalition, has been left out of the negotiating process. The party put forward three representatives that were rejected by Pere Aragonès because they do not belong to the Catalan government. Two of them were well-known leaders of the 2017 breakaway bid.
Aragonés also wanted to prevent the negotiating table from “becoming a space for partisan interests”. “The [Catalan] delegation must be made up of members of the Cabinet because this is what represents a country,” he said.
The dispute evidences the split between the two secessionist parties—while ERC has ruled out new unilateral attempts at splitting off from Spain, for JxCat it is the only way their dreams of independence will ever come true.
The Spanish right-wing, on the other hand, has always opposed any negotiating approach to solving the crisis, arguing that there is no discussion possible with those who want to break up Spain. During an interview with the Cadena Cope radio station, the People’s Party leader Pablo Casado said it was a “deeply grave matter” because “[by agreeing to sit at the negotiating table] Sánchez is agreeing to the referendum Aragonès and Puigdemont are asking for.”