Is there a Sánchez route?

In the same week as Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has expressed a wish for the judicial approach to the Catalan conflict to give way to politics, Court No. 13 in Barcelona has sent the Catalan High Court a document setting out reasons to investigate the Catalan vice president Pere Aragonès and two other MPs from the Catalan Republican Left (ERC). In the case of Aragonés, the call for an investigation arises from a Civil Guard report and inquiries that agents supposedly made, leading them to include that he was conducting interviews aimed at securing financing for an independent Catalonia.

It is difficult to see how a case could be made against Aragonès, but if Spanish justice has shown us anything over this past year, it is that nothing can be ruled out, since innocent people have been held in jail on remand for many months based on an imaginary and fantastic narrative and there, behind bars, they remain. With no heed taken of the decisions of European justice and the major international organisations.

The big question is whether there is a Sánchez route beyond mere rhetoric and if he is willing to make a significant political movement. Starting the new political year in September without any such movement would be tantamount to continuing along the Rajoy route. Maintaining the same stance for the Public Prosecution service on the issue is also the Rajoy route. And leaving everything in the hands of the judges is the Rajoy route too. Catalan president Torra has left the way open for a negotiated referendum that would complement the one held on 1st October 2017. This is a move which has not found great favour among the independence movement, but which, surely, is intended to show flexibility in the face of rigidity.

Because the only sure thing in Catalonia's contention with Spain is that Sánchez's Socialist government is very comfortable doing nothing, while the right-wing PP and Cs parties continuously accuse him of being under the thumb of the independence movement whose parliamentary votes allowed him to form a government. Things look very different, seen from Sánchez’s holiday residence in Doñana where he awaits weekend meetings with Angela Merkel. Afterwards, everything will speed up.