"When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there." This tale by the Guatemalan writer of Honduran origin Augusto Monterroso is considered the shortest story in history and, since it was written in 1959, it has been used on multiple occasions to remark on the fact that everyday problems are forgotten while you sleep, but when you wake up you find yourself facing them again. Life goes on and so do problems. President Carles Puigdemont has long been the dinosaur on the table top of Spanish politics. Unpredictable, audacious and not known in Madrid, where they try to assimilate him like anyone else who has passed through the Spanish capital since the time of Jordi Pujol and Miquel Roca.
The result has ended up being absolute ignorance of how he practices politics. It's like when, sometimes, in Barcelona, simplistic analyses are made of the political phenomenon which Isabel Díaz Ayuso represents and she is presented as someone idiotic and ignorant. Nothing could be further from the truth when she has mental agility, humour, ambition and a desire to learn. It's hard to beat your opponent if you don't know them. "If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat", is one of Sun Tzu's phrases (and reflections) in his work The Art of War. The president-in-exile, Carles Puigdemont, and the Socialists, mainly José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Santos Cerdán, are in this phase, of getting to know each other, of letting go of distrust. The negotiation between the Socialists (PSOE) and Together for Catalonia (Junts), which will officially get underway this Saturday, will pivot on the three of them.
A negotiation with international mediation - the Henry Dunant Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a diplomacy NGO, linked to the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations, based in Switzerland, established in November 1998, will be present, acting, probably, as spokesperson, and following faithfully the role as defined in the agreement that the Socialists and the Catalan party reached on November 9th in Brussels. "The PSOE and Junts have agreed to set up a mechanism between the two organizations, international, which will have the functions of accompanying, verifying and monitoring the entire negotiation process and the agreements that are reached," says that text. Can the current discord be filled with content? Experience does not allow one to be optimistic, but that will have to be confirmed once again.
PSOE and Junts have held two preparatory meetings this November. The meeting in Switzerland arrives with a certain amount of work already done
Saturday's meeting arrives with a certain amount of work already done. Two preparatory meetings were held during November so that some of the issues of the first official encounter have been resolved. The second of these prior gatherings took place this week. There will be other figures in this mechanism between the two organizations, who will also be foreign, and who have not been announced. One of them, at least, has asked for maximum discretion over his name, something the PSOE has happily accepted. No one doubts that it will eventually become known, but, as of now, it is not. In this whole process, which is complex and, as is normal, with many doubts to be assuaged, situations will occur like the one on Wednesday with the commotion caused by the conversation that Puigdemont had on Tuesday night, in Brussels, during the gala of the influential weekly Politico, with the president of the European People's Party, Manfred Weber, when he left in the air a comment about hypothetical support for a motion of no confidence against Pedro Sánchez if the Socialists do not respect the agreements signed with Junts.
It was a message to the PSOE so that they wouldn't have this common problem of a lack of memory. But also, a reminder to the odd member of his own party, who seems to want a faster negotiation rather than a good one; more comfortable for the PSOE than demanding. And thus, in addition, to make it clear that he is the one leading the negotiation.