In Spain's PSOE-Podemos government there are, as in all executives, ministers with a range of profiles and different roles. There are those who are in charge of the negotiations and who over and over again play the game of complicating the issue, generating expectations that are never met - here, deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo has abilities that put her considerably ahead of her interlocutors - and then there are those who, depending on their position, can afford to say what they like, as their portfolio takes them to places far removed from the daily altercations of the Spanish parliament.
For that reason, it is important what was said this Sunday by the defence minister Margarita Robles, as well as the tone somewhere between burlesque and disdainful which she used to refer to the still-unborn dialogue table between the Spanish and Catalan governments and the need for it to meet, even if only so that Pedro Sánchez could comply, even just once, with a commitment he has acquired. “It’s not time for floral games,” Robles sentenced. And she concluded: "It's not a priority."
Since when are the negotiations to solve the principal territorial problem of the Spanish state nothing more than "floral games"? Are these people so deluded that they believe that by doing nothing the conflict between Catalonia and Spain will be watered down? Having said that, though, it is also good that after blaming the pro-independence side for the failure of the table to meet, the truth now emerges: "This is not the time for floral games." First it was Mariano Rajoy who made it fashionable to say that the Catalan independence process was like froth on beer and that it would fall away of its own accord over time. It did not fall away, but rather, got out of the Spanish government's control, and only with force and repression did they manage to reverse the situation.
Someone should have learned something in the political, judicial, economic and media circles of Madrid from that analysis, which turned out to be completely wrong. But Pedro Sánchez seems to be just as comfortable as his predecessor with the attitude he still maintains and which he has only corrected by his introduction of a different tone. Where Rajoy said don't even talk about it, Sanchez says let's talk. But the result is still the same: there is no dialogue, and even less negotiation. And if it is necessary to disdain the dialogue with Catalonia, there is always someone willing to do that in Madrid and, moreover, this is how supports are won. It is, of course, much more appreciated doing that, as defence minister, than putting an end to the anomaly of having Juan Carlos I, even after he has fled the country, still occupying the rank of Captain General of the Armed Forces in the Reserve.