The annoying DUI returns to Parliament

Together and the CUP have given the green light through the Parliament Bureau, coinciding with the monographic plenum on the drought, to the processing of a popular legislative initiative (ILP) presented by Solidaritat Catalana (it still exists!) for independence to return to be declared unilaterally this legislature.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
21 February 2024 Wednesday 10:17
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The annoying DUI returns to Parliament

Together and the CUP have given the green light through the Parliament Bureau, coinciding with the monographic plenum on the drought, to the processing of a popular legislative initiative (ILP) presented by Solidaritat Catalana (it still exists!) for independence to return to be declared unilaterally this legislature. The DUI of the angry. Against all common and political sense, juntaires and cupaires give string to the ridiculous and marginal performance that arrived at the Parliament from the confines of the most thunderous independence.

About the CUP, which is in the middle of a process of reflection on its present marginality and future essence through the Gestalt method or similar, little to say. Yes, it is appropriate to refer to Junts, the party thanks to which Spain has a president and a government and which enjoys its recent rise to prominence as the kingmaker of state politics in exchange for an amnesty that is still being negotiated.

What pushes the board members to give oxygen to an ILP with no slack or turn that aims to recover the anti-democratic procedure of 2017 at a time when it negotiates with the other hand something as sensitive and complicated as the criminal oblivion of all related facts with the process?

First, the more than likely possibility that the initiative will collapse just from setting sail in accordance with the regulations of the ILP, which places this particular one outside the legality. Second, don't give reasons or air to the pro-independence people who are working from the Catalan National Assembly to make a fourth secessionist list a reality by offering them a candy so they can keep licking it in the meantime. Third, avoid the photograph of the two representatives of Junts a la Mesa de l’hemicicle, Anna Erra, president, and Aurora Madaula, second secretary, voting differently in the event that the party had opted for abstention. Surely Erra would have followed the party's guidelines, whatever they were, but go and find out what Madaula would have done when he was on the verge of being expelled from his parliamentary group, following in the footsteps of his colleague Cristina Casol, who is already sailing for the sidereal space of the non-affiliated deputy.

The formal argument presented was, on the other hand, that everything should be able to be discussed and debated in Parliament. It is a demagogic resource that turns the chamber into a rag to mop the floor under the guise of democratic radicalism which is actually quite the opposite. An ILP that claims that half plus one of the deputies is enough to declare independence is as anti-democratic now as it was in 2017. And parliaments are there to strengthen democracy, not to jump on top of it.

ERC has been a little more consistent with its abstention. His argument says that he does not want to frustrate the hopes of independence supporters who are still emotionally anchored in seven years ago. It's a different way of saying that having crashed once, for the time being, the lesson has been learned. In their case, this position is easier to maintain, given that they already discounted the "we are in a hurry" votes some time ago. The members, on the other hand, since they have rectified it later, continue to make balances to keep in their voter bag those who still believe that independence is a feasible goal with the same parliamentary mechanisms that would approve a motion in defense of the right of starlings to defecate where they please. That is why the even days are aimed at reality and the odd days still celebrate with fantasy.

Since none of this will have any practical effect, we could ignore and despise the decision of the Bureau of the Parliament. But there are two considerations that lead to not doing it. The first, that with this type of decisions Junts adds more and more tension to the structures of the PSOE and hinders the path to a resolution of the conflict that goes beyond the amnesty that must be approved in Congress. And the second and even more important, feeds, although unlike 2017 it is now marginally and from a purely tactical position, the more national populist and anti-democratic drive of independence. Of course, in the meantime it continues without rain.