The intoxication of political fury at the end of the year has been tremendous. The two big parties have been locked in a fight on behalf of the Constitutional Court. Big words have been said. The PP has subscribed to the thesis of the illegitimate government: “Sánchez is legitimately president, but he is not legitimate, he is not doing it,” said Alberto Núñez Feijóo. The argument against the government is its alliances. But the Executive has not lost a vote in Congress of the almost 200 laws and decrees that it has submitted for its consideration. Sánchez has consolidated a compact parliamentary bloc that represents a puzzle Spain, diverse and peripheral, contrary to the current right.
The legislative binge this year’s end contained a dish that made the menu indigestible for the Socialists: the embezzlement reform so that dozens of pro-independence leaders awaiting trial for 1-O do not go to prison. The controversial reform of the Constitutional election system has covered that vein. Sánchez thus leaves the Catalan front clear, which is precisely the one that the opposition uses the most to wear him down. The relationship with ERC enters a phase of media hibernation. Contacts will be maintained, whether or not there are more meetings of the dialogue table. The link between Moncloa and the Republicans is constant and discreet. The table only appears when it is convenient for ERC to provide a photo.
The trials at the second political levels during 2017 will take place in 2023 in a climate of less tension with the central government after the embezzlement reform, although it is not possible to venture what the court sentence will be. Pedro Sánchez has preferred that path, which is so damaging to the image of his party, and not another, such as repeating the pardons because many would be affected (it would seem like a covert amnesty) and the procedure lasted four years the other time, but above all because, If this measure was applied, it would not control the times. The imprisonment and the consequent pro-independence protests could take place during the electoral period.
The scenario of a return to conflict in Catalonia would provide valuable ammunition to the PP and Vox, who would not only present Sánchez as subject to the independence movement for maintaining his easy chair, but would add that he has achieved nothing despite his concessions. In turn, the president could not defend his alliance with ERC on the grounds that he has managed to fade the 2017 tension in Catalonia. What’s more, Sánchez is going to focus on Barcelona, since if the PSC wins the mayoralty, it will be able to present that achievement in the rest of Spain as a demonstration that it is possible to stop the independence movement with the recipe for “deinflammation.”
The date of the Catalan elections is one of the unknowns of 2023. To complete the mandate, or almost, Pere Aragonès needs to approve the budgets and that depends on the PSC. It is not feasible for Junts to support them once they are out of the Government, since it would only reopen the internal wounds that festered with that decision. So it is up to Salvador Illa to give or not oxygen to ERC in Catalonia. The PSC leader will not do anything that harms Sánchez’s interests, but in 2023 we are entering a different phase and the Socialists consider that Moncloa has already complied with ERC and that the Catalan budgets do not fall into the same package. Illa is looking for an agreement that makes clear the determining role of his party, that is, that ERC gives up its positions against some key project, such as the expansion of the airport, the Hard Rock Café in Tarragona or the fourth belt.
After the elimination of sedition from the Penal Code and the embezzlement reform, it remains to be seen what the Supreme Court will decide when it reviews the sentences of the pardoned independentistas, but who continue to be disqualified from holding public office. In Moncloa they are convinced that no one will be able to run in this electoral cycle, which includes the municipal ones in May, the general ones in December and some Catalan elections that are scheduled for the beginning of 2025 but that could be advanced.
Oriol Junqueras hopes to return to institutional politics, although his disqualification was for 13 years. But he is not the only one. It is curious that, although Junts rejected the penal reforms negotiated by ERC, its leaders are the ones with the highest expectations regarding its effects. Junts is a paralyzed party, awaiting judicial decisions. Some hope that European justice will allow the return of Carles Puigdemont in 2023, others hope that the courts will withdraw Laura Borràs from the political race, some others believe that the penal reforms will allow Jordi Turull and, above all, Josep Rull (whose penalty is less) run in the Catalan elections.
With the end-of-year binge, Sánchez clears obstacles in 2023 to prevent Catalonia from interfering in his electoral strategy, with an eye toward an improvement in the economy that will just take away from Feijóo the two flags that the PP usually brandishes to recover power, and run to the polls. Although after a pandemic and a war, who knows what 2023 holds.
