It was with Pedro Sánchez's departure homeward to Madrid and the publication of the news reports over the dialogue table, that the point of tension and irritation between the Republican Left (ERC) and Together for Catalonia (Junts) of the day before seems to have settled down and it all turned into appeals to patch things up and close the incident. The Catalan government is once again trying to maintain a stable ship, far from the confrontation between the two parties that make it up, surely both aware that in Catalan politics crises last a few hours, if we are not talking about something else, which is complete rupture, and that, today, is not on the table.
Pere Aragonès and Jordi Puigneró, Catalan president and vice president, who do not have a bad relationship, formally began the de-icing on Thursday morning with the intention that by the next Catalan cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the fewest possible traces of the disagreement should remain. I recognize that this is not an easy task, but the discrepancies between the pro-independence parties over the dialogue table should not affect the work of governance. It is a very fine line as contamination is easy, but for that reason, among others, at the beginning of September I suggested from this editorial space a table that was more political, going far beyond just the two parties of the Catalan executive - in fact, without any members of the government apart from the obvious presence of president Aragonès. With this approach, much more practical and realistic in the face of the amalgam that the independence movement consists of today, the recent crisis would not have existed.
The pity of all this is that Sánchez made himself right at home on his visit to Barcelona. He even came out smelling like roses on the issue of the suspension of the 1.7 billion euro investment for the expansion of El Prat airport. A project of sufficient magnitude and with such huge environmental complications that it cannot be settled with a "take it or leave it" reminiscent of unacceptable colonialism. Especially if the party trying to force your decision is the current political perpetrator of the plunder of more than 16 billion euros a year that Catalonia has suffered for decades and that a fiscal pact in the form of an economic agreement would resolve.
But in a line completely opposed to all this, the Spanish transport minister, former Gavà mayor Raquel Sánchez, has closed the door on any possibility that the 1.7 billion euro investment could be included in the Spanish government five-year plan that will be approved at the end of September. It is no less paradoxical that the party proposing the reinforcement of infrastructure investments as the only solution to the territorial conflict removes the millions from the table and transfers the responsibility to the party that has lost them. At the first opportunity and without any negotiation. And all this without even blushing.