A few days ago, a foreign media correspondent asked me the following question: "Can you tell me what actions the Spanish government is taking to solve the Catalan conflict?" My answer could not have been more direct: "None". The journalist was baffled by the answer and thought he had simply not understood it well and continued: "I'm asking, off the record if you want, so that my readers can get an idea of how the talks are going and what the discrepancies could be".
Faced with his persistence, which was on the other hand understandable, my answer could not be as simple as for the first question and I explained that the Spanish government solely addressed this issue as a juridical matter in which only prosecutors and judges had to make decisions and that politics, as understood in the journalist's country, was ignoring its duties. I had another conversation that was not very different to this, a little further back in time, with a well-qualified diplomatic representative from a country that has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
In that case, the diplomat's experience led him to predict that, sooner or later in a conflict, channels of dialogue are always opened and that the key was to reach this moment in a position where you are able to negotiate with your opponent. Seeing the behaviour of the Spanish state with the members of the Catalan government in exile or in prison and the leaders of the pro-independence civic groups also in prison, one could wonder what world the foreign journalist and the diplomat are living in. They are certainly not aware of Spanish reality, the response of the political class and the refusal to undertake any dialogue.
It is dangerous to bury one's head in the sand ostrich-style, because the problem still exists. And it will continue to exist. Enough time has passed, with several elections being held, so that nobody in their right mind can believe that one day, of its own accord, it will disappear.