"Europe is putting the pressure on us and we need to quickly resolve the Catalan rebellion. We would have liked to wait until after 1st October but the Catalan government has left us no other option. We warned him, but this Puigdemont doesn't recognise us and he's as hard as a rock. He's convinced everyone to resist and to resist. The half measures no longer serve." With this bluntness the situation within the cauldron of Spanish political power was described to me by a person who historically manages sensitive information. "But you have already lost the story in Catalonia, international public opinion is increasingly aligned with the thesis of the Catalan government and in Spain the opposition to the triumvirate PP-PSOE-Cs is being consolidated," I suggested. "Of course, of course. We have lost Catalonia. But if Merkel asks Rajoy once she has been re-elected on Sunday to solve the Catalan problem, and that we must speak because European stability is sacred, then we have a problem. A serious problem. And this will happen if we do not overwhelm the revolt that exists in Catalonia, and which continues to come out every day in the newspapers around the whole world. They are all our friends but Europe will not accept our position with most of its media saying that the solution would be to agree on a referendum".
This dialogue serves, surely, much more than any other analysis to explain the double lethal jump of the Spanish government in the last hours: on one hand, to put on the table of the Cabinet Meeting the crime of sedition for the "tumultuous demonstrations of this Wednesday in front of the ministry of Economy, and on Thursday and Friday in front of the TSJC (High Court of Justice of Catalonia) and in the City of Justice of Barcelona". Just minutes after the minister Méndez de Vigo, as spokesman of the Executive, had brought up this scenario in the Moncloa [Spanish prime minister's residence], the denunciation by the Public Prosecutor's Office from the National Court was known, very clearly oriented to the facts outlined, and considered "constitutive of a crime of sedition in accordance with article 544 of the Penal Code". This document outlines the scope to which it is addressed in the first instance, and includes the presidents of ANC (Catalan National Assembly) and Òmnium Cultural, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart. The judge at the National Court who will take the case will be Ismael Moreno.
The second move is the fact of taking control for public order in Catalonia. Interior minister Zoido has increased up to 7,000 the security forces that will move to Catalonia in view of the planned referendum on 1st October, adding to the exisiting 6,000, increasing the number of Civil Guard and National Police to 13,000, which is 4,000 less that the number of Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), and, according to the Ministry of Interior, a figure more than enough so that the control of the polling stations does not have to be shared with the Catalan police. The movement by the Spanish government incurs two risks: the result is uncertain, especially if the concentrations at the polling stations are very important and, on the other hand, as detractors have also suggested, at a time when the terrorist alert is at level 4 a part of the Spanish territory will remain with minimum resources.
There are many who believe that the Spanish government has been sitting on a powder keg with its repressive policy. The surprising thing is the scarce energy it has used in its seductive boasting about Operation Dialogue and how comfortable it seems to be with the Operation Turmoil. Perhaps because they always wanted the end to be like this. Using force against independence. But what they did not count upon, surely, was a Catalan government that would not fold.