The second anniversary of the 1st October referendum, celebrated this Tuesday, has been marked by hope and melancholy; by the recognition of an exceptional milestone in the history of the country and by concern for the situation of the prisoners and exiles; by the repression and by the constant threats from the Spanish government, in this case not a PP government but PSOE, to apply article 1551 under any excuse; by the unstoppable media whirlwind to create the narrative that "independence movement = terrorism" and by the launch of the public machinery which is to respond to the Supreme Court's sentences. Unlike the 1st October of two years ago, dominated by an overwhelming victory of the independence movement which managed to beat the Spanish state, which had assured there would be neither ballot boxes nor a referendum, a certain tense calm is to be perceived, without knowing very well what the public's response will be to the Spanish justice system's attack.
Strictly in terms of Catalan politics, two initiatives this 1st October stand out above the news maelstrom. Firstly, the commitment made by the Catalan government in a solemn event at the government palace to "advance without excuses" to make the Catalan republic a reality. Secondly, the agreement by the Council for the Republic which, after a meeting in Brussels, has announced it will call together the Assembly of Elected Officials of Catalonia to decide what the response should be to the Supreme Court's sentences if they are condemnatory. This assembly of town councilors, mayors, Catalan Parliament and Spanish Congress deputies and senators will be responsible, they say, for deciding on the direction of the country after the sentences.
It's obvious that this year the post-sentence match has replaced, in part, the commemoration of the referendum. So much so that the Catalan response has had a deliberate profile, consistent across medium-sized protests with demonstrations in various Catalan cities and gatherings at some of the polling stations which suffered the most from the repression of the state's security forces. PSOE and Pedro Sánchez are starting to shamelessly show their strategy of maximum confrontation with the independence movement and become prodigious in all their public statements with a hypothetical application of article 155. Their latest statements indicating that they had already analysed that the Senate could approve it, as is required by the Constitution, even if it has been dissolved for an election, have the sole objective of continuing to feed a controversy which, given the actions of the Catalan government to date, should be non-existent.
But between article 155 and the terrorism they're trying to link independence supporters to, Pedro Sánchez is doing his thing and moving away from a solution to the Catalan problem. Because if, obviously, it's not the justice system who has to resolve it and Spanish politics openly desists from doing so, who is left with the authority so that the conflict doesn't continue to fester?
Translator's note:
1. Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution was the one used by Mariano Rajoy's PP Spanish government in 2017 to suspend Catalan autonomy and remove the Catalan government from office.