The recognition of the existence of a conflict of a political nature, a space for negotiation to address it and the legitimization of the independence movement as a political actor are cards that sovereignty has already had since the PSOE-ERC pact of 2020. The results are quite different; but on these points the contribution of Carles Puigdemont's speech is pure redundancy due to a lot of pyrotechnics from 1714 that he introduced into his speech to cover the leak that could open up for him in the field of credibility for renouncing the self-determination referendum as a condition to facilitate the investiture of Pedro Sánchez.
So far the Republican provosts would be right when they congratulate themselves that Carles Puigdemont has finally settled down and embraced the benefits of negotiation and realism. And also up to here, but only up to here, the Monclovites and the PSOE have arguments to think that they already experienced this in 2020 with the first inauguration of Sánchez. If so, they think, it is enough to repeat the scheme of that time to achieve the same and favorable result. Let us remember what the script was: a practical and tangible concession – pardons – and a kicking the ball into the field of good intentions with the negotiating table. From this assimilation of past and present scenarios is born the moderate optimism of the PSOE.
But the differences are remarkable. Puigdemont raises the amnesty not as a pardon, but as a full acknowledgment of guilt on the part of the State, to which he forces a severe penance that for many will be equivalent to surrender. Especially when he accompanies his demand with the threatening catchphrase of unilateralism to which he, unlike the Republicans in his day, he says he will not renounce.
The ace of unilateralism that Puigdemont keeps up his sleeve, even in the event that it responds solely to the field of tactical verbiage, is basically the recovery of the threatening catchphrase that was so successful in Catalonia after the events of October: we will do it again. And it should be a difficult morsel to swallow even for a PSOE with big swallows like Pedro Sánchez's.
Pardons required a lot of lube and initial secrecy. Before its formalization, ERC made its commitment to legality explicit and recognized the lack of legitimacy of the 2017 referendum. Puigdemont's negotiation formula is quite the opposite. He proposes that Congress, through amnesty, approve the legitimacy of everything that happened six years ago. Let the State assume the burden of guilt. A bitter cup for the PSOE. But also for the PSC and for a not inconsiderable part of the voter pool that has made Salvador Illa's project the great champion of the last electoral cycle in Catalonia.
The will to agree involves setting aside the differences and focusing on what makes the agreement possible. That is why the PSOE and the rest of the actors who push in the direction of achieving it underestimate this substantial difference. And hence also the insistence that this part of Puigdemont's speech must not be taken into account because it is addressed solely to ERC in the logic of internal competition between the two formations.
But there is another way of approaching the statements of the former president of the Generalitat. It is true that he renounces from the outset an exercise of self-determination as a condition for inaugurating Sánchez. Only that his approach, to the extent that the State assumes the blame for what happened in the past, allows him to turn the 2017 referendum into a victory, this time: it was legal and legitimate. No practical consequences of any kind for now, naturally. But with the legitimacy cover of the Cortes so that it can be repeated again as soon as the conventional negotiations fail and the state of mind of sovereignism – if that happens one day – is once again muscular. That is the price that as of today marks the investiture: moral and political coverage of the events of October 2017. A maximum price that the logic of the market will try to lower, of course.
