It is relevant to discuss, as has already been done, whether or not it is appropriate to talk now about the clarity agreement in order to have the basis for a referendum as proposed by the president of the Generalitat. Many citizens these days are more concerned about the drought, housing problems, inflation or stagnant wages than about how to improve self-government. But we also consider that it is a mistake to anchor in the speech that for several days the man of the Catalan portfolio and Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, when he refers to this agreement of clarity as "returning to the past ".
It is Pedro Sánchez himself who admits that there is a political problem in Catalonia and that it must be solved. What is the solution offered by the Central Government? In some public statements, socialist leaders such as Salvador Illa have spoken out for an improvement in self-government that could be ratified in a consultation, always in agreement with the State Executive. The proposal that Pere Aragonès is now putting forward is similar to it and has nothing to do with the 1-0 referendum, which was imposed by the pro-independence parliamentary majority and without the support of the Spanish Government. Pere Aragonès promotes a commission made up of pro-independence academics and others who are not, whose conclusions will be debated with the parliamentary groups - yes: Vox is left out - and the final result would end in a referendum agreed with the central government.
Bolaños says he rejects formulas that divided and pitted Catalans against each other and "led Catalonia to enter a loop that lasted a decade". We agree, but what is now on the table is not a unilateral proposal, and it even includes one of the requests that the PSC had always raised: that there be some kind of table of Catalan parties to talk about the question. The central government should give some way out to the more pactist Catalan independence rather than talking euphemistically about dialogue without reaching any clear conclusion.
