Pedro Sánchez has started sending messages to the Catalan independence movement. They're not yet coherent or heading in the same direction, but he wants to show he's making moves and that, with the budget passed, he will make more. What's certain, however, is that, for the moment, he's going round in circles and talking more than doing. In fact, to be honest, he only talks.
On Saturday, he sent his government's delegate to Catalonia, Teresa Cunillera, from Lleida, to break ground on pardons. Cunillera, taking for granted their convictions, showed herself in favour of pardoning the prisoners if they ask for it. It's true that she immediately retracted it, it's true that from the point of view of the strictest justice it's a joke and it's true that, if it were to happen, accepting the pardon would be a recognition of guilt. But PP and Cs reacted by smothering Sánchez's proposal. And the president achieved his objective: you see, I'm the only one who can help you, he was saying with his silence. This Sunday, the deputy prime minister took another step in advocating for the conditional release of the political prisoners if the trial is postponed further. There's a lot more to this topic if the date for the trial isn't set quickly.
A few months ago, everyone took it for granted that the trial would come during the last two months of this year and the verdicts before next year's municipal elections. It's possible that the Supreme Court is still thinking on these lines, but it's not been decided. Meanwhile, other hypotheses have emerged. That it could be held in the first quarter of next year with the sentence after the municipal elections or even that the appeals, the lawyers' work and the electoral calendar could push the trial to after the polls. Calvo's proposal falls within this latter possibility: if the trial is so far off, conditional release is a hypothesis.
But, for the moment, all of this is Pedro Sánchez testing the waters. Maybe the Spanish government should stop acting like a talking head and get the state's legal service and the attorney general moving. That's within his powers and only depends on his will.