The pact of television: goodbye to sedition, hello budgets

Pere Aragonès would have wanted a photo with Pedro Sánchez to certify the suppression of the crime of sedition, but the President of the Government preferred to explain it in prime time on television.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
11 November 2022 Friday 15:30
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The pact of television: goodbye to sedition, hello budgets

Pere Aragonès would have wanted a photo with Pedro Sánchez to certify the suppression of the crime of sedition, but the President of the Government preferred to explain it in prime time on television. Sánchez exhibited penal Europeanism and avoided the parliamentary dependency of the independentistas. The scenery, for once, was the least important in a long and discreet negotiation. On Tuesday the proposal was not, "yet", at that point in which the leaders call each other and say: Let's go. The forecast was "the next few weeks", but always with the commitment to comply with the pact signed in July that there would be legal reforms to advance in the dejudicialization before the end of the year. On Wednesday the fringes are unstuck. On Thursday at noon it closes with the presidential blessings and without the need for calls.

Are Aragonès satisfied? He tilts his head to the side and smiles. Oriol Junqueras remains expectant. He can accelerate the countdown of his disqualification from returning to institutional politics if the Supreme Court does not endorse the crime of embezzlement. It would generate an internal problem in ERC that the disqualification and the presidency of Aragonès had avoided. More than one candidate?

Meanwhile, ERC expresses its two mantras: "There is no alternative to negotiation" and "persevering in your goals pays off". Junqueras turned the party's strategy on November 2, 2017 at the National Court, before Carmen Lamela sent him to Estremera, and, finally, yesterday his party could boast of results beyond the polls. Something that was not possible with pardons.

Until achieving the goal, the discipline in the communication policy has been more iron than ever to safeguard the negotiation. The loudspeakers were turned off and the Madrid buses could not find Gabriel Rufián. Thus, the negotiation advanced. Now, ERC is vindicating itself in public, it does not want the common people in the photo and the socialist barons digest the agreement without an extra dose of salts. The new crime of aggravated public disorder opens up endless possibilities –disturbing for the independence movement, according to Junts, the CUP and Òmnium– that allow the PSOE to combat the discourse of judicial lukewarmness before the ho tornarem a fer . “There will no longer be sanctuaries for attacks against public order”, proclaimed Patxi López in response to the doubts of Emiliano García-Page and Javier Lambán.

The independence movement is further than close to doing it again, so the "historical irresponsibility" that Alberto Núñez Feijóo attributes to Sánchez has no future path. Due to the exceptional nature of the crime of sedition: it originated in 1822 and no one had ever been convicted in a democracy. And because the current roadmap is not that of independence unity, but the one imposed by socialists and republicans, overcoming flying goals until the time comes to face each other at the polls. In all the polls from May next year.

The itinerary is marked. First: Congress should approve the penal reform before the end of the session period. In the procedure, ERC will insist on modifying the crime of embezzlement with the PSOE's unwritten commitment to address it. ERC wants to "save the soldiers" investigated in courts 13 and 18 of Barcelona and the TSJC; the PSOE looks askance at José Antonio Griñán. Second: ERC guarantees stability for the rest of the legislature with its vote on the budgets. The opinion is approved next week and in plenary session, starting on the 21st. From Congress to the Senate. Third: the Generalitat works to present its budgets at the beginning of December and overcome the entire debate before the end of the year. The final approval, PSC by default of Junts, would arrive in the first quarter of the year.

Salvador Illa wants to squeeze his position in the polls before a Govern in minority. He is interested in bringing the approval of the budgets as close as possible to the municipal elections. A "tripartite" photo. And far from being compromised, the PSC could consider launching a pressingERC in search of an electoral advance in Catalonia. Achieving the mayoralty of Barcelona with Jaume Collboni would be the perfect springboard for Illa... and Pedro Sánchez. And Together? Pending Carles Puigdemont, on Wednesday he plans to receive the former ministers.