What would you say, reader, about a company in which several minority shareholders, holders of between 20% and 25% of the share capital, would like to separate from it, that is, dissolve and liquidate it to take their liquidation fee? What would you think if, furthermore, another shareholder, owner of 40% of the capital, without wanting to dissolve the company, abhorred it and was so ashamed of it as it is constituted, that he was in favor of a radical statutory change in its structure and government? And what would you expect, finally, if the remaining shareholder, holder of what remains of the capital, were incapable of developing a strategic plan as ambitious as it was realistic, which would constitute a suggestive corporate project?
Surely you would think that this company is in a state of agony and that it will become extinct as such, with others taking its place. Which could only be avoided if the two large shareholders, who between them far exceed the absolute majority, agreed to move the company forward without harm to anyone and for the benefit of everyone.
A similar situation is today in Spain. The separatist parties want this: to separate. They don't fool anyone. They say it without hesitation and show with jaquette arrogance their lack of sense of belonging to Spain, from which their radical and proclaimed absence of solidarity derives. For its part, a large sector of the left associates the idea of Spain – as a historical entity and as a political project – with an instrument of domination historically in the hands of the right, for being designed at the service of “those who have been established on the State for centuries.” ” and they consider that “their homeland” is “their farm.” And the right oscillates between an excess of rhetorical and tremendous jingoism that shows a tin chest, and a willful evasion of responsibilities compatible with an interested calculation.
Furthermore, both major parties, PSOE and PP, authentic organic bosses of this Second Restoration that we are experiencing, are complicit in putting their party interests before the general interests of Spain. Thus, when their deputies denigrate and debase themselves in Congress and the Senate, with unworthy language, they are not fighting for anything other than power. If they had great spirit, love for their country and respect for their fellow citizens, they would not behave in a way that muddies politics.
But this is what it is: they don't give more of themselves. And, therefore, instead of seeking the great pact between them that the seriousness of the moment demands, both the PSOE and the PP do not exclude tortuous pacts with those who want to liquidate Spain. The PSOE made it clear the same night of July 23, when, after doing the math, its leader said the sacred words – “We are more” –, thinking of a fruitful alliance with the separatists, which has been more than consummated. And there are those who suggest that the PP run a similar exciting adventure, agreeing with Junts on a motion of censure against the current president in exchange for who knows what. This may be a hoax, but perhaps it has a longer history than it appears, since a possible PP-Junts entity has been suggested for days in certain environments and by certain media. Perhaps this daydream has questioned Alejandro Fernández.
Now, these dark works of concluding shameful pacts with the separatists, although productive according to the spurious perspective of the struggle for power, require, given their peculiar nature, negotiators of special skill. Santos Cerdán León, a Navarrese from Milagro, and Esteban González Pons, a Valencian from Valencia, apparently meet this requirement. Cerdán has been the negotiator of the exchange signed with Puigdemont in Brussels. And González Pons could be the PP's interlocutor with Junts to reach a possible pact, since he was before Feijóo's frustrated investiture.
I do not go into the suitability of both politicians to carry out such a complex task. But I think that, in any case, his very prominence marks the current tone of Spanish politics. That is why today we could speak of the Spain of Santos and Esteban.
