When the searches of the Catalan Economy ministry and headquarters of the vice-presidency, on Barcelona's rambla Catalunya, and also the Telecommunications & Information Technology Centre and communications giant Mediapro started this Tuesday, nobody was surprised. And that's not normal. It's seemed something already habitual recently and unfortunately it's too easy to speculate: every story about corruption in Spanish politics is accompanied by the corresponding staging of a search in some Catalan authority, institution, body, society or another. And this Tuesday was the day all eyes were on the expected final verdict from the Supreme Court on the so-called Nóos case which sentences Iñaki Urdangarin to more than five years in prison between the charges, and infanta Cristina to pay almost 137,000 euros as an unknowing beneficiary.
The same thing as this Tuesday happened on 24th May, when the National Audience sentenced Luis Bárcenas to 33 years in prison and the PP as an unknowing beneficiary. Ultimately, it unleashed the motion of no-confidence in Mariano Rajoy and the change of government in Spain. But, with the sentence expected on that 24th May, what happened early that morning? Well, a huge operation was undertaken which announced itself with more than 30 arrests over the following hours and involving some 500 agents. The passing of the hours, as on other occasions, lowered media expectations and the headline of the alleged diversion of several millions in grants to the 1st October referendum and the independence process. They are two examples and we could give more that are perfectly documented in newspaper archives.
The police operations this Tuesday and 24th May give the impression that the main objective is visibility, media impact. Because, among other reasons, the documentation they ended up taking away could have been obtained more discretely. It's also surprising they should continue seeking documentation from the 1st October referendum so many months later. It's possible there's been a new line of investigation open in the last few hours, but after the Spanish government occupied the Catalan government for so many months, it remains striking. The president of Mediapro, Jaume Roures, said that the police wanted to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. When, moreover, they hadn't taken away anything important. It's also, unfortunately, grotesque.
That said, Catalans sharing corruption and TV news minutes with Urdangarin or the PP has ended up, in today's Spain, almost a national sport.