These elections lift a veil and clear up a mystery in Catalonia. The resounding victory of Catalan socialism, which even improves the results of May 12, clears the way for Salvador Illa to negotiate and obtain the investiture as president of the Generalitat. The Catalan reading of the European elections offers few doubts. The political imagination must be forced to limits incomprehensible to the vast majority of citizens to persist in resistance to the formation of a government led by the PSC, whether alone or in a left-wing coalition.
For an entire month, since the regional elections of May 12, the law of silence has reigned in the halls of Parliament and has hovered over public opinion. The electoral campaign has led to hiding any negotiation or contact for the formation of the chamber’s board and, as a consequence, for the organization of the investiture. The legal deadline for the constitution of the new legislature has been rushed to today. If there has been any type of agreement on the composition of the board and the name of the new president or even on the investiture, no one has news or knows about it.
It could not be otherwise given the uncomfortable overlap between the start of the Catalan legislature and the campaign for the European elections. Any agreement reached in this interval would have interfered in the electoral campaign, whether it was that of the three left-wing parties for the investiture of Illa, or that of the pro-independence parties to take over the table and condition the investiture or even catapult Puigdemont. The tripartite pact would have been inconvenient for Comunes and Esquerra, but the independence pact, claimed as anti-repressive after the Constitutional ruling disabling the telematic vote of Carles Puigdemont and Lluís Puig, would have instead stimulated the sovereign vote. From this it would be deduced that it could not have occurred and consequently the attempted electoral repetition encouraged by Puigdemont can be considered highly unlikely.
In addition to ending uncertainty, the European elections have a Catalan translation that is resolved in a triple endorsement: for Catalan socialism and its centrality within the PSOE; for the amnesty that allowed the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez and for Salvador Illa with his purpose of turning the page on the lost decade in Catalonia. Even the drop in participation allows for a practical interpretation regarding the fatigue of the electorate and the inhibition of pro-independence voters: that no one insists on making a nuisance of new elections. The five consecutive victories of Catalan socialism do not exactly encourage the dreams of those like Puigdemont who are tempted to roll the dice once again, in a gesture typical of inveterate losers, always ready to continue trying their luck at roulette until they are fleeced.
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No one can give rise to the fantasies that so enthused the PP, Vox and the missing Citizens about the inexorable march towards the self-determination referendum or even about the investiture of Puigdemont in exchange for stability for Sánchez. The Catalan popular leader Alejandro Fernández was right when he ended the secessionist process, and Alberto Feijóo was not right with his interested apocalyptic vision of the future of the integrity of Spain. The disavowal of the independence movement is as clamorous as the ratification of socialist hegemony and even surpasses that suffered by the Popular Party.
It will be useless to continue delaying the beginning of a new stage. Catalonia cannot wait any longer. The gum of processes It does not give more of itself. Whoever continues to stretch it will move away from the centrality where the future will be defined until they risk losing all relevance. The European elections send an indisputable message to Junqueras and Puigdemont. The time has come for rectification and renewal, for strategies and leadership. Gorbachev’s words to the German communist leader Erich Honecker a few weeks before the fall of the Berlin Wall are valid for the two secessionist leaders: “History punishes those who arrive late.”
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