Let's be honest: the staging of Pedro Sánchez's government has been magnificent. A precise and very audiovisual measure of the times, the staggered release of information on the new ministers, a crescendo on the new prime minister's ability to put together a team of ministers no one would have thought of just hours earlier and, finally, as in all good plots, the final and surprising cherry on top of a culture minister like Màxim Huerta, the controversial TV journalist, mainly known for his work on El programa de Ana Rosa. In football terms, you could say there's a team with many stars, but it remains to be seen if there's a great team. We'll see if it's not Paris Saint-Germain and its team of galácticos superstars. When it comes to Catalonia, there's nothing good in the profiles of many of the new ministers, at least based on what they've said recently. I know these are times when many are trying to see some sign offering something to allow them to argue that the easing of tensions has started in Catalonia. I've not been able to find any in what they've said and done so far.
There's a famous astronaut, Pedro Duque, an aeronautical engineer by profession. Three ministers from the world of the judiciary: National Audience prosecutor Dolores Delgado will take the justice portfolio; General Council of the Judiciary spokesperson Fernando Grande-Marlaska, a conservative and former National Audience judge, the interior ministry; and the former Supreme Court judge and, more recently, PSOE's spokesperson in the Congress, Margarita Robles, defence. Andalusian heft for a portfolio as important as the Treasury with Seville's María Jesús Montero, who has to put on the table the new system for financing the autonomous communities. Two Catalans, Josep Borrell at the foreign ministry and Meritxell Batet at Territorial Policy. On the first, since we learned of his nomination, the first name to leak, we've learnt almost everything; on the second, she has a chance with a portfolio which isn't that which would fit best with her background. An unknown with a hot potato. Pessimism.
The thing we do have to be very sincerely happy about is the enormous jump in the presence of women in the Spanish government, where, for the first time, they're a majority. Sánchez is making an unarguable commitment, very much in line with the last PSOE prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. In this regard, he's sending a powerful message to Spanish society and he has to be thanked for it.
That said, it's more than noticeably just a paint job compared to Rajoy's government. In almost all areas which allow for public debate. Nothing to say. Suddenly the black-and-white Spain of the PP of recent years has given way, visually speaking, to another Spain which is much more current, modern and in line with current society. But one can expect a new government to offer new policies and to deal with the real and urgent problems it's faced with. And this government will have no credibility if it doesn't deal with the conflict with Catalonia, the unjust pretrial detention of some of the pro-independence leaders and the exile of president Carles Puigdemont, the ministers fired by article 155, Esquerra's secretary general, Marta Rovira, and former CUP deputy Anna Gabriel. That's going to be your homework, prime minister Sánchez.