It is scarcely debatable that the removal of the vote on the official language status of Catalan from the meeting agenda of the EU's General Affairs Council is bad news. And there are two reasons why that is so: firstly, because this time expectations had been raised. Apparently, the issue was mature enough that with the push from Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, the obstacles could be overcome. Secondly, because while it is true that you can flourish by waiting, and in Europe even more so, the Spanish foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, was given the message, before last week's holiday-interrupted Purísima week in Spain, that things were not going well and that there was a perceptible lowering of the pressure on the countries that were raising objections. To put it bluntly: with Pedro Sánchez's investiture already materialized, he was entering that phase that Madrid dominates so well.
Well, the removal of the item from the agenda; the wait, for at least another month, for its approval; and the fact that after January 1st, Spain will lose the manoeuvrability granted to it by the European presidency, which will be handed on to Belgium, could end up precipitating the first crisis between the Socialists (PSOE) under Pedro Sánchez and the Junts (Together for Catalonia) of Carles Puigdemont. Indeed, it is undeniable that the confidence being constructed has been seen with many reservations from Waterloo, and the triumphs that are an essential part of the game of politics must not fall on one side only. The issue of Catalan as the official language of the European institutions has been present, in one way or another, in four of the last five meetings of the General Affairs Council of the European Union held by the foreign ministries of the 27 member states.
Playing with fire in these first stages of the legislature is a bad move, since the PSOE must not lose in any vote
The minister Albares has even taken part in some of these meetings, a circumstance that will not occur on this occasion, as he is preparing his first official trip to Morocco, on Wednesday. The first time the issue was raised in Brussels, on September 19th, the climate was apparently very different. Even president Puigdemont thanked him in a video that asserted the minister's "interest" in "defending the arguments that support the request." It is more than possible that today the words would be different, since the progress has not become evident and the foreign ministry, on its own initiative or because of instructions from above, has moved more slowly.
Whatever the issue, playing with fire in these first stages of the legislature is a bad move, since the PSOE must not lose in any vote. The temptation to create significant irritation in Junts is a more than palpable risk. This Monday, when Pedro Sánchez presented his book En tierra firme ("On solid ground") amid jokes about the Salvadoran mediator which made a comparison with the reality show Supervivientes ("Survivors"), added more tension to the atmosphere. Nor is the fact that the amnesty bill begins its journey through Congress this Tuesday an umbrella that can cover everything, the agreements that have been kept and those that have not from the various issues that have been opened. Since Pedro Sánchez usually only reacts when he sees danger nearby, it is more than likely that he will move some piece to get back to the previous situation. The PSOE has too much arithmetical fragility to try to repeat those previous episodes in which Sánchez earned his fame for pulling conjuring tricks like no-one else.