Although at other times Catalonia's relations with its neighbours - Aragón and Valencia - or with Catalan-speaking territories - also the Balearic Islands - have been difficult, at no time in recent decades has it certainly reached the level of harassment that will be experienced from now on. In all three autonomous communities, agreements have been reached between the People's Party (PP) and Vox, whose initial political programme targets the Catalan language directly and, moreover, in the case of Aragón, Jorge Azcón of the PP has just been sworn in as president with the declaration that it will be an anti-Catalanist government and the announcement that among the first measures it will adopt is the abolition of the General Directorate of Linguistic Policy.
Long gone are the years when Marcelino Iglesias held the presidency of the Aragonese government, between 1999 and 2011, speaking Catalan as normal practice and taking important actions in linguistic matters. His successor Luisa Fernández Rudi (PP) and, above all, Javier Lambán (PSOE) already strained the relationship to an extreme degree. And the fact that Lambán has a degree in Philosophy and Arts from the University of Barcelona, but, for whatever reason, his policy during the eight years he was president was one of permanent litigation and an exaggerated aversion to Catalan and Catalonia's institutions. Cultural issues related to the Sixena monastery and the Winter Olympics bid serve as examples.
Now the PP and Vox arrive, and it is clear that it will be much more serious still, but the PSOE has sown anti-Catalanism in Aragón for many years and now the right and the far right are finding fertile ground. When it is sometimes said that in some cases there are not so many differences between one side and the other, Lambán is a good example of someone who builds walls that others, in the future, will have to tear down. Politics has these things: that the majorities are fickle and sometimes you have to bite your tongue to stay in the top echelon.
If not, ask the acting defence minister, Margarita Robles, with regard to the surprising and arbitrary decision of the holiday chamber of the Constitutional Court, which, taking advantage of a conservative majority that it does not have in the plenary, agreed - for the first time - to refuse to admit the appeals of Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín against their prosecution for aggravated misuse of funds and disobedience. To see the defence minister defending Puigdemont and expressing the arguments that the decision was not urgent and did not correspond to the holiday chamber is almost poetic justice.
How Robles must see herself, lining up with Puigdemont, knowing that many things depend on the vote of Together for Catalonia (Junts) in Congress at the moment. Meritxell Batet is already out of the speaker's position in Congress and both Robles and Marlaska (interior) if they have done anything, it has been to cross red lines, and in just this category is the Pegasus case of espionage on the independence movement. Things change and those who were once accustomed to using weapons of destruction, now step out ready to offer candy, just in case.