Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez's visit to Barcelona to take part in a meeting of the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) was not, in the end, used by Sánchez to reveal some new proposal for the Catalan government or the pro-independence political groups to win their support for his Spanish budget. However, the Socialist (PSOE) leader did assert the confidence he has in his project and sent a message to the leaders of the Popular Party (PP) and Ciudadanos (C) , Pablo Casado and Albert Rivera, who are calling for immediate elections: "They should wait sitting down. We are going to govern until 2020," he said. The need to apply a brake on the right-wing accord made between PP, Cs and the extremist Vox party in Andalusia, which Sánchez described as voxonaros (in reference to the president of Brazil) and PSC leader Miquel Iceta as trifachitos (incorporating the word for fascist) has become the engine and the steering wheel of the entire Socialist argument.
Sánchez, then, limited himself to reiterating some of the general lines of the proposed budget approved by his cabinet on Friday. He did not raise any specific proposal for investment in Catalonia, any offer to the Catalan government or the pro-independence political parties in Congress, ERC and PDeCAT, whose votes he is seeking and who at present are discussing whether or not to allow the budget bill to be admitted for debate.
All the Spanish PM actually did was to warn that "the Catalan crisis will not be resolved in two or three months," that it requires "common sense and a sense of state" and to repeat his line of needing "the independence movement to move from monologue to dialogue." And that was it. Those were his only proposals with regard to Catalonia.
No social majority
In fact, Sánchez's speech was aimed at asserting that Catalan independence movement is weaker than it makes out, that the successive votes that have taken place in recent years have shown that "they do not have the social majority in Catalonia". No reference, however, to their votes in Congress, essential to ensure that the budget is discussed in parliament.
No sooner had he taken the floor than he paid tribute to the PSC mayors who had to face "very difficult moments in the social coexistence between Catalans", which, he claimed, even affected their families and their children.
Nor did Spanish territorial minister Meritxell Batet extend any new offer to ERC and PDeCAT to facilitate their budget support. For his part, PSC leader Miquel Iceta stated bluntly that "a no is impossible" on the budget issue, which seems to be the key to the Socialists' strategy in negotiation with the Catalan parties. "It will be impossible for anyone who governs in the interests of Catalans to have backed a no vote to this budget," Iceta argued.
The voxonaros of Spanish politics
Far-right party Vox has turned into the great argument which the PSOE government now uses to shield itself. The discourse that the Socialists offered this Saturday at the International Convention Centre in Barcelona contrasted the continuity of their government with the emergence of what Sánchez called the Spanish right's "moral and ideological bankruptcy". "They are the voxonaros of Spanish politics," said the leader of the PSOE, a play on the name of Brazil's new right-wing leader Bolsonaro. Iceta spoke of the trifachito - which combines the words for 'tripartite' and 'fascist'.
Following the Andalusia pact involving the Spanish extreme right, the Socialists chose to look to their roots and Sánchez did not hesitate to quote some of the great European social democrat figures: Willy Brandt, Olof Palme, François Mitterrand, Jacques Delors and even Felipe González. "We have to stand up for many things from the past," said Sánchez.
And the PSC took him at his word. In the first row of the meeting, along with PSC mayors, former Catalan Socialist leaders Pere Navarro, José Montilla and Raimon Obiols were present, and also received mentions in speeches. As did past Socialist mayors of Barcelona: Narcís Serra, Pasqual Maragall, Joan Clos and Jordi Hereu (not present except for Hereu).
The rally marks the starting gun for the PSC's municipal election campaign, and in particular, for that of its Barcelona mayoral candidate, Jaume Collboni, who was especially critical of mayor Ada Colau. In Collboni words: "When she had to choose between the independence parties and the interests of Barcelona, she chose independence." He also had harsh words for the Ciudadanos candidate for Barcelona, Manuel Valls, describing hims as "the ambassador of the pact of shame", another reference to the agreement with Vox in Andalusia of which the Cs party is part.
"I am the heir to the tradition of Narcís Serra, Pasqual Maragall, Joan Clos and Jordi Hereu", proclaimed the Socialist candidate.