Spain: the pact and the fury, is the latest book by journalist Enric Juliana (Badalona, 1957), deputy director of La Vanguardia and delegate of the newspaper in Madrid since 2004. A chronicle of twenty years of Spanish politics.
The issue of fury seems hardly debatable today. On the other hand, the pact is unlikely.
In fact, there is more fury than agreement. Now, in the last twenty years important things have been agreed upon in Spain. In 2011, the modification of article 135 of the Constitution to guarantee the payment of the debt; the procedure for the abdication of King Juan Carlos in 2014, and finally, the application of article 155 in Catalonia in 2017. There are more agreements. For more than four years, Spain has operated with a coalition government and a complex parliamentary majority. The PP maintains alliances with Vox in at least six autonomies. There will be more agreements. Right now, in the midst of the haze, I glimpse a possible tactical convergence between Junts and the Popular Party.
Together and PP? This wasn't in the script.
The amnesty means 'everyone in'. An unprecedented normalization of Spanish politics. All forces with social roots are present in Parliament today and will operate freely. Convergences that were possible the day before yesterday and that were broken may reappear. I think the word convergence is very relevant. The PP and Junts do not have insurmountable differences in economic and social matters. What can happen? To begin with, in the electoral phase that is now opening in Catalonia, a strong role for Carles Puigdemont would not hurt the Popular Party. Later, PP and Junts could discreetly agree on how to put an end to the Spanish legislature to promote new elections. A few months ago, in Brussels, Puigdemont told Manfred Weber [president of the European PP] that he was not going to marry the socialists and that at a given moment he could agree on a motion of censure with the PP to call elections. During the recent Galician campaign, “senior sources” of the PP explained to a group of journalists that they might be willing to grant a pardon to Puigdemont, with conditions. They were sending signals through the fog: “A pact could also be reached with us.” I am convinced that there are open lines of communication between Junts and the PP, which should not surprise us since the amnesty means everyone inside.
So, the fury in this country has a lot of fakery
One of the things I have learned these twenty years in Madrid is that dramatization is a very Spanish attack tactic. If everything is a drama, people tend to become inhibited. Fear paralyzes. There is imposed drama from above and explosions of anger from below. People are moving away from politics and it is not known where the unrest will come from. Perhaps the Catalan elections will tell us something about this. Let's look at Portugal, a country much less angry than Spain. We have just seen an explosion of Portuguese anger. Portugal's macroeconomic numbers are as good as those of Spain but, as is the case here, there are many people who cannot afford to pay rent and food.
The left is struggling.
Well, I would say that the left has not done so badly in the Iberian Peninsula. Since Franco's death, the party that has governed Spain for the longest time is the PSOE, first alone, now in a coalition. The current government formula in Spain is unique in Europe: socialists plus a left with old ties to the Communist Party. Yolanda Díaz is heir to the Eurocommunism of the transition.
And further to the left is Podemos. The book pays attention to Podemos.
Let's say that I have not dedicated myself to insulting them, as many journalists have done in this country. Podemos introduced an electric shock and one of its effects was to save the Socialist Party, which was on its way to ruin. This discharge sought to surpass the PSOE electorally, but it achieved the opposite effect. The Socialist Party was forced to wake up and there was Pedro Sánchez.
About Sánchez, in one passage we read: “He has never been a leftist. Sánchez has a strong will to power. Sánchez is a radical pragmatist.”
Pedro Sánchez has never been the left wing of the PSOE. I think he understood the 2014/2015 moment, of strong challenge to the Spanish political system. The 'no means no' to Mariano Rajoy's investiture obeyed that vision: the young people had gone with Podemos and the PSOE had to get them back. He did not want to make an agreement with Podemos, he wanted to avoid the surprise. In 2019 he agreed with them because he had no other choice. A pragmatist.
Where is the country of pact and fury going?
Immediately, the Government of Spain must decide what to do with the increasingly insistent demands to redouble military support for Ukraine and increase defense spending in the face of long-standing tension with Russia and a possible return of Donald Trump. to the White House. Sánchez's stellar moment was the negotiation of the European recovery pacts in the middle of the pandemic. Will it be possible to maintain the current parliamentary majority under the aegis of European rearmament? This is the question. Although it may not seem like it, the Catalan elections will also have to answer that question. A change of elevation is coming.
In this book we can reread the dialogues with Reaper, the talking bull
This book has two plans that complement each other: a chronicle of the last twenty years, year by year, plus a selection of articles to reinforce the interpretation of what happened. It is my point of view and also my contribution to La Vanguardia, which has allowed me to work freely in a complex scenario. And, yes, there is also the Reaper bull. I haven't spoken to him in a while. You have to have respect for bulls. But I don't rule out that one day he will reappear. Reaper will return.
