Coinciding with the end of the second week of the hunger strike in Lledoners prison, Jordi Turull has had to be transferred to the prison hospital to monitor the state of his health and avoid him being left alone in his cell. Jordi Sànchez, former leader of the civil group ANC and leader of the parliamentary group JxCat, has also been on hunger strike for as long as Catalan government minister Turull, while Josep Rull and Quim Forn, also ministers in Carles Puigdemont's Catalan government, have now completed ten days of hunger strike. They are four of the nine pro-independence Catalan political prisoners who are currently in jail, in three cases having been imprisoned for over a year (Sànchez, Forn and Cuixart) and in the other six cases (Junqueras, Forcadell, Turull, Rull, Romeva and Bassa) for a minimum of 268 days.
This situation, unjust in judicial terms and disproportionate in terms of their jailing, has not prompted Pedro Sánchez's Socialist (PSOE) government of Spain to take any decision, but rather, his approach has changed from a certain cordiality in gestures - with zero result - to a disproportionate aggressiveness with the independence movement following his spectacular defeat in the Andalusian elections. There are reasons to be very critical of the Sánchez government and to postulate quite seriously that, beyond the removal of Mariano Rajoy and the Popular Party (PP) from power, the no-confidence motion has served for very little indeed. The Socialist executive has not been up to the task at any stage and hasn't showed the slightest desire to deal with the political problem facing it: tackling what 80% of Catalans demand, which is a self-determination referendum.
In addition, with regard to Catalonia, the PSOE has gradually moved closer to its article 155 allies, the PP and Ciudadanos, perhaps seeking the shelter and protection of the monolithic Spain that the Socialists also fuelled through the "Go get 'em" anti-independence fervour. Indeed, the PSOE now seem to find themselves more comfortable with the right, which in all its different expressions is becoming less centrist and much more extreme.
With this context, prime minister Sánchez has made a written request for a meeting in Barcelona with Catalan president Torra - a meeting from which no results can be expected, taking advantage of his visit to Barcelona this coming Thursday and Friday, in which he will preside over a cabinet meeting in the Catalan capital on the morning of the 21st. Given that the independence movement has made the need for dialogue into the emblematic call at the head of its demands, it doesn't make much sense for it to deny this encounter. It will not achieve anything, but it must be accepted so as not to allow the Spanish government to claim, in the international media and the chancelleries, that it has found no one on the Catalan side to talk to.
Obviously, it seems more logical for this meeting to take place on the 20th, since on the 21st, several protest actions have been called in the centre of Barcelona on the occasion of the Spanish cabinet meeting at Barcelona's Llotja de Mar palace. Protests that seek to draw attention to the current political reality, with people imprisoned and in exile, and the permanent threat of a new imposition of article 155. It would be positive and desirable if, as on previous occasions, the prisoners made a joint statement before December 21st. President Torra must take advantage of this meeting if in the end it is held, to convey the disappointment felt by a large majority of Catalans in Sánchez's passivity, belligerence and inability to budge. It will always be much better to say this in the loudest and fullest voice possible, than to abdicate responsibilities.