The fact that the nine recently-released political prisoners have, since Friday, received countless public recognitions, and this Monday, an institutional tribute at the Palau de la Generalitat and the Parliament of Catalonia, led by president Aragonès and his government in the first case and speaker Laura Borràs and dozens of MPs in the second, should serve as a double exercise in realism. For one, to highlight that the Catalan independence movement has won the internal battle, since Pedro Sánchez, contrary to what he declared in 2018, has had to give the prisoners back their freedom. As well, the focuses of prison and exile have mutually nourished each other much more than it seems, even enabling Europe to confirm that the shortcomings of Spanish democracy and the comparison with Turkey are an impediment for a continent that prides itself on being a bastion of human rights.
No one knows for sure what will happen when the Spanish government rejects, as it will, the amnesty law, the referendum and self-determination, as no roadmap has been drawn for this. Nor is it known how the pro-independence forces will respond to the wave of repression in the form of fake trials that are yet to be held and that are carefully scheduled. The first, the so-called Court of Accounts which has been imaginatively renamed the Court of Settling Scores and which will most likely this Wednesday set millionaire bail quantities to be deposited by forty senior officials of the Catalan governments between 2011 and 2017, starting with Puigdemont, Mas and Junqueras.
The third R of the day is re-encounter. After almost three years, a president of the Generalitat of Catalonia will have an interview in the Spanish government's Moncloa palace with the prime minister. Both sides have carefully prepared the gestures made in recent weeks so that the appointment can be held with a controlled tension. The pardons, and the statements by Oriol Junqueras pointing out that "the attitude of the Spanish government is the best in a decade" have certainly paved the way for Aragonès, who does not have an easy task in finding a narrative that conveys confidence in the dialogue between governments and does not lead the independence movement onto the wrong track.
The Catalan agenda and the solution to the conflict must begin to make inroads, maintaining the line of the speeches that were delivered on Monday in the Generalitat and at Parliament. The pardons do not make the independence movement beholden to Sánchez, and this, which is so difficult to understand in Madrid, must be made clear. The Catalan proposal is clear: the time has come for Sánchez to show his cards and stop the juggling tricks.