Seville is a funeral. The Partido Popular is a funeral. Cristina Cifuentes is a political corpse despite her party's unwillingness to admit it. Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría and María Dolores de Cospedal are a shadow of what they once were. Spain's governing PP is in shock, while continuing to speak in its annual convention about the Catalan independence movement, about rebellion, a coup d'etat and how they saved Spain. There are none so blind as those who will not see. Maybe it can all be blamed on the place chosen for their Seville convention, the Hotel Renacimiento, a name which, if translated literally, has a definition that fits like a glove: the action of reviving a living being after its actual or apparent death. European justice has rolled over Spanish justice like a bulldozer, demolishing the Spanish state's narrative, about violence in Catalonia. The worst aspect has been the reaction: Spanish nationalism has oscillated between disbelief, indignation and rage. Oh, the lies!
While this was going on, around 3,000 kilometres away, Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was resting, having regained his liberty after being held for twelve days in the Neümunster prison, a period which ended with the Schleswig-Holstein territorial court rejecting his extradition for rebellion. Now, the court will study if there are grounds for him to be extradited for misappropriation of public funds. A crime far from proven so far despite Judge Pablo Llarena having filled out the charge with literature. German justice minister Katarina Barley, of the socialist SPD party, has thrown a bucket of cold water on the Rajoy government's hopes by ensuring that Spain will now have to explain why it makes this accusation and "that will not be easy". The accusation has yet to be played out; meanwhile, through its negligence, the Spanish state is teetering on the cliff edge.
In a country where the separation of powers is so clear one cannot assume that shady deals will be made. Of course not. But Germany, its spokespeople, its media, are sending an unequivocal message to the Spanish authorities: sit down and talk. Repression and justice will not resolve the conflict. It is not strange in this context for Carles Puigdemont to stand outside the door of the prison and declare in German and English that now is the moment for politics and dialogue. Words that are welcomed by the German authorities, to whom nothing would give more satisfaction than for Berlin to be the place where a new era begins. Puigdemont did not speak about conditions but he made it clear that he would be a part of such dialogue.
But this attitude of Puigdemont's will not win any response if Spain does not feel it is on the edge of the abyss. Or, as Germany's most important newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung along with the NTV television channel, both put it: if the German government or the EU do not intervene in the conflict between Catalonia and the Spanish state. Everyone's eyes are turning to Chancellor Merkel.