Pedro Sánchez: "The independentists do not care about the model of the State, they want to go against the being of Spain"

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has a fairly clear idea of ​​the process that should be followed to adapt the text of the Constitution to the new needs of Spanish society. It does not intend an enormous negotiation, on its most controversial aspects, but to open a simpler and pragmatic way by which those points that reach an almost unanimous consensus will be improved. The final goal would be the Constitution of 1978, but with all the necessary modifications so that the young people of today feel it as theirs. For President Sánchez, the constitutional pact is part of a broader social pact, in which the territorial aspects are fundamental but, of course, only part of the alliance between generations. The conversation took place in the palace of La Moncloa on November 20, on the occasion of the special supplement of the Constitution that will be published this Thursday along with the printed edition.

Q. One of the great issues that always arise on the evolution of the Spanish Constitution is its reform to set a federal structure of the State. How do you see it? 

A. I would say three things: the first, I really like a phrase by Jordi Solé Tura that said "it does not matter what you call it, the important thing is that it works". I think that pragmatic sense, coming in addition to a person who was an exile, who returned and who finally ended up being Minister of Culture is a good conception of political life: to have principles and be pragmatic. Second, the problem is that federalism as such is a term that is not just understood by the Spanish. The meaning it has in Spain has nothing to do with the meaning it has in other democracies. Federalism in Spain, I believe that as a consequence also of the Second Republic, has more disintegrating connotations than aggregates, as may happen in the United States or Germany. That is why the great success of the constituent parents is, indeed, to have found a terminology that, following the reflection of Jordi Solé Tura, no matter what is called, the case is that it works. And it has worked for 40 years. It happens that instruments wear out, materials suffer, like people, and we need to reinvigorate them. The renewal of the constitutional pact will not be an end in itself, when it begins to occur, but it will be a channel, a mechanism through which we can begin to rebuild some of the broken consensuses. That is a bit the issue. But, yes, I believe that the autonomous State is a federal State and that one of the great challenges we have now is to perfect our territorial model.