At the end of last summer, the Spanish Socialists (PSOE) reluctantly accepted the demand of the Catalan and Basque pro-independence parties, to which Unidas Podemos soon joined, to create the third commission of inquiry in the Spanish Congress of Deputies related to the so-called sewers of the state. By 191 votes in favour to 153 against, it was agreed to investigate the Andorran plot of Operation Catalonia, a key mission carried out by the Interior ministry and the patriotic police brigade in an attempt to obtain secret financial information on pro-independence leaders by pressuring the now-defunct Banca Privada d'Andorra (BPA). With just a few days to go before the six-month anniversary of that political commitment being made, the Socialists, deeply immersed in traversing the final stretch of the legislature, with no decisive need to beg for parliamentary votes and with the phantom of an early election having been laid to rest, are evasive about it being constituted, despite the news stories on the subject that continue to appear.
The Socialists will know what secret pacts they have with the People's Party (PP) on all those issues that affect the judicialization of politics in Catalonia. It is obvious that the 1978 regime has an essential bulwark in the PSOE, as has been seen at different times of Spain's democratic transition. When something has been seriously at risk in the territorial architecture, the PSOE has not hesitated to unite with the right-wing to oversee Spain's evolution towards centralism. It was seen with the very distant LOAPA, limiting the autonomous communities, a consequence, in part, of the coup d'état attempt of 23-F, but, above all, the result of the tripartite agreement between the head of state, the military and the three main parties - the now-defunct UCD, the PSOE and the Popular Alliance (forerunner to the PP). The soldiers thus returned to their barracks and the compromised democracy would put an end to what was considered the shambles of decentralized power.
The PSOE did not have to return to its role as the party of the regime until the events of autumn 2017 in Catalonia. As with the LOAPA, the Socialists backed Mariano Rajoy's PP and what happened next is well known. The absolute majority of the PP in the Senate was on its own sufficient for the approval of Article 155 of the Constitution, suppressing Catalonia's autonomy and sacking its government, but the PSOE nevertheless facilitated its senators and MPs to the right. We now know, with evidence beyond reasonable doubt, that that PP government acted outside the law, fabricated false evidence and, despicably, used the sewers of the state against a democratic movement.
This is what the Socialists are protecting with their comings and goings over Operation Catalonia. Perhaps it is easier to understand if we link it with another news story from this Tuesday in the Congress of Deputies, the one about PP and Vox helping the PSOE and Unidas Podemos government to annul an appearance by Pedro Sánchez over the undercover National Police officers infiltrated in social movements in Catalonia and the Valencian Country. The efforts of all the right-wing parties at the Congressional Bureau have been enough to shield Sánchez and prevent the issue from even reaching the full session of Parliament. It must be a case of repaying favours and if the minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska can make statements justifying police moles to prevent criminal acts and remain so calm, what wouldn't the Socialists do in return, if what is at stake is preventing all of the putrid sewerage hidden in Operation Catalonia from floating to the surface?