Before the the emergence of the independence movement, At the beginning of this third millennium, the stability and governability of Catalonia rested on the reciprocal agreements of three agents: PSC, Convergencia and Unio, and ERC, according to the internal power relations after each election. Until 2003, the 1980 triad dictated not only the economic policy (including taxation) of Catalonia; also participated in the State’s autonomous financing system which, despite its anemia in recent years, continues to govern today. However, the result of the last elections in Catalonia (with the spectacular triumph of Salvador Illa and the disappearance of Ciudadanos), will give, whether we like it or not, not only a Copernican turn to Catalan tax policy, but also to its relations with the State and those it maintains with the other regions. Some, at the time of the first gin and tonic after the polls closed, have said that Illa is the undertaker of the “process”. It is an accurate opinion that deserves more than one nuance. It is true that the failure of ERC and the endogamous scare of Junts (“Mirror, mirror, tell me who is the prettiest at the ball”) partially support the autopsy of the independence movement. But we must not go so fast. Because concepts and things do not necessarily have a univocal meaning. There we have EH Bildu (which, of course, has nothing to do with the PSC) fighting for the independence of the Basque Country with methods that They would undoubtedly have been collaborationists and despicable to the uncompromising purity of ETA.Nor we must forget the doctrine of contamination and its influence on people and organisations as flexible as the PSC. Illa, half a Machado-like teacher from an analogue school without an internet connection, and half a parish priest from Poble del Segur, can reach the promised land (which a few years ago was very far from the ideology of Catalan socialism) in a pancist way, antiheroic and more committed to things to eat. These vulgarities of everyday life, forced omissions in chivalric novels are what have condemned ERC to spend a short time in the desert. Illa’s socialism has managed to unite around its figure an electorate compatible in its weariness of the independence movement that really exists but heterogeneous within a wide range that includes from nationalist positions to former popular and convergent, and former vagabond citizens. Illa has nothing to do with Joan Raventós or Ramón Obiols. Salvador Illa’s relationship with Spanish constitutionalism is dubious, at best. He is certainly not going to take to the hills, as the insurgents did in 2017, but (iron fist in a velvet glove) he is going to be a problem for the Spanish State, because Illa carries more than just autonomy in his suitcase. His solidarity with other Spaniards has not appeared anywhere until now. Twenty-five years ago the expression “asymmetric Spain” (copyright Pascual Maragall) became famous to refer to the antics of the then mayor of Barcelona. However, now everything, in today’s Spain, is fluid and asymmetric. Those who see Salvador Illa as the right-hand man of Pedro Sanchez in Cataloniain my opinion they see a mirage. Don Salvador is not their front man in the northeast of the peninsula. Everything indicates that the key words to describe the still undefined relations of the State with Catalonia are going to be “Association” or “Confederation”. Of course, The PSC is not going to defend fiscal equality among Spaniards, He will go his own way, he will ask for an exclusive tax regime for Catalonia, like that of Navarre and the Basque Country, and he will not take the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council very seriously. After the dead hopes of the 1978 Constitution, everything in Spain remains to be done. And with new protagonists, such as Salvador Illa, who will go from being a supporting actor to take control of the administrative structures of a State. History has no script. Salvador Illa, the man of a thousand positions, was the dark horse of the “procés”.
Source: www.lainformacion.com
‘Maragalladas’
