How long can the Catalan bourgeoisie and businessmen last without a direct political interlocutor in the style of the old pujolismo? Will he end up getting used to a new reality without a complicit representative and defender of his interests in Madrid and Barcelona to surrender to other forces? Could it be the PP? Is a center-right Catalan or nationalist force no longer necessary? The vacuum has lasted for more than a decade and is palpable in debates and economic forums of all kinds. To the point of no return?
The absence in the Cercle d'Economia of the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been highlighted, very dedicated to organizing the campaign that he precipitated after the fiasco last Sunday. And the space left by the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who had a lucid performance, especially because it was easy. Without competition he took the applause without risking hardly, without advancing anything concrete. The presidential aura that the polls give him was enough to leave the audience speechless. The long absence of the various mutations of the old convergent nationalism barely generates comments.
Since the post-referendum failure of October 1, 2017 and the transfers of business headquarters, a replacement political operation has been tested that today can be considered finished. The attempt by the followers of Oriol Junqueras and ERC to become bourgeois by filling in the space for dialogue with the economic elites. But that has not ended well. Despite the more or less explicit statements by Junqueras and the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, trying to present himself as a kind of uncorrupted replacement of the old convergence in representing the economic interests of the business community, everything has been a failed act. Files such as the expansion of the El Prat airport or fiscal policy stand as walls between them and the elite Although these are not only prosaic issues. The senators of the economy are not characterized by their flexibility; while the ERC leaders have been stuck between that announced turn and their essential electoral bases.
Two political events have made this abundantly clear. The first, in Barcelona, the fundamental battle of the last 28M elections in Catalonia. In 2019, the local bourgeoisie blocked the path of its candidate, Ernest Maragall, through the support of an agent at that time, Manuel Valls, for Mayor Ada Colau. Certainly, not without division and internal tension, maintained throughout the mayor's past term.
In these last elections, the problems for the Republicans have been repeated in two ways. The Cercle d'Economia, for example, had made it clear, many months before the start of the campaign, that it viewed the candidate of the Socialists, Jaume Collboni, with more sympathy and chances of victory than that of the ERC. It was not the only strategic business center with a similar calculation, but it was there where it manifested itself most clearly.
An election that was described as a lesser evil in the absence of an own candidate with credentials. Until the appearance, of course, of the veteran Xavier Trias. Hesitantly, at first, with conviction and determination as the decisive day approached. His appearance at the Cercle meeting leaves for history the graphic evidence of the euphoria for his result. For the first time in more than a decade, the local great men once again felt the sweet taste of victory. With the added surprise, since the overwhelming majority of the surveys had not foreseen it. With some solitary exception, like the first in La Vanguardia on January 16.
His victory and the good result of Junts in the rest of Catalonia have given rise to speculation about the idea of his reorientation towards a neoconvergence adapted to the post-process times. Although in the lists for the generals that has no longer been an option. In addition, Trias has defined his project in a strictly local key, apart from his own party, to which he has warned that in the Catalan capital he is, in theory, the one in charge. It's been quite like that during the campaign. In any case, he would not lack support from the economic world if he tried to take the step.
But the most skeptical, and there are not a few, point out that Carles Puigdemont is the dominant vector in Junts and his interests do not go through recovering dialogue and pragmatic negotiation.
And here comes the second political element that has enormously widened the gap between the bourgeoisie and ERC. The turnaround announced by Aragonès at the Cercle meeting, anticipating a new PP government in Madrid, or worse, this one with Vox, which forces them to prepare for another by putting together a kind of pro-independence front.
To the elite, on the other hand, the prospect of an electoral victory for the PP, today the one with the most possibilities, not only does not frighten them; He looks at her relatively normally. Try, the reception of Feijóo in the aforementioned forum. His maxim is to negotiate with Moncloa, whoever the tenant is.
The disqualification of Catalan nationalism intertwined with business continues and there is no end in sight. Meanwhile, it is she herself, the bourgeoisie, who has to act as the solitary spokesperson for her interests, in increasingly ritualistic acts. Josep Sánchez Llibre, president of Foment and Jaume Guardiola, president of Cercle, present the classic demands for better financing and more public investment. They have been for the past few days. But, like an oil stain, it spreads that the central concern of that social class is taxes, the inexorable push for territorial depoliticization. It was like that during the long night of Francoism until Jordi Pujol arrived. Feijóo tries to fish these days in those waters. So far with very little success. We will see on July 23.
