Josep M. Vallès is Professor Emeritus of Political Science (UAB).
The frustrated attempt to establish a space for dialogue between the State Governments and the Catalan Generalitat demonstrates the enormous difficulty of overcoming the current deadlock. Within a few days the oral trial begins in the process against the political and social leaders of the independence movement. After its conclusion and whatever its outcome, the conflict that has caused it will remain pending solution. After the publication of the sentence, it will be verified that judicializing the issue was one of the three wrongful departures that have tried to be given to the matter. The others were the doing nothing and the unilateral declaration of independence.
You have to think, therefore, in the day after, when it is verified that things continue in the substantial as they are today, although they are removed from the scene some - not all - of the people who have played a notable role in this issue. We will continue without having an immediate and prefabricated exit. It is motivated, among other things, by the contrasting dynamics that animate public opinion in Spain and Catalonia. A large majority of the opinion in Catalonia - including a notable non-independentist contingent - aspires to an increase in the political capacity of its Government. On the other hand, the majority of Spanish public opinion is inclined to reduce the current degree of territorial self-government or to limit it to the current model.
A significant sample of this contrast has been revealed in the recent and striking declaration of the Regional Parliament of Extremadura as a probable reflection of the opinion of its citizens. According to recent data from the CIS (Survey 3.234, December 2018), 13% of Extremadura are in favor of increasing self-government, while it is 60% of Catalans. In the opposite pole, 30% are inclined in Extremadura to suppress the autonomous communities or recentralize the State, an option that only convinces 14% of Catalans. For the conservation of the current situation, 42% of Extremadura and 23% of Catalans are pronounced. Without pretension of accuracy in the figures, the marked trends are very clear. Positions similar to Extremadura and even more pronounced occur in almost all autonomous communities where there is a minority demand to increase self-government and the tendency to decrease it or, in any case, to comply with the currently available.
This disparity of tendencies between the Catalan opinion - shared only with the Basque Country and Navarra - and the other communities has been maintained for some time. Its persistence is the cause and signal of the complexity of the issue at hand. For this reason, solutions as simple as preserving - whether judicially, governmentally or militarily - the substance of the current status quo or attempting to alter it in a radical manner unilaterally will hardly succeed. What is left to politics as a way out?
A large majority of the opinion in Catalonia aspires to an increase in the political capacity of its Government.
In a democratic context, politics must embark on the long and complicated negotiation path in order to reach a compromise. It is the way that aspires to commitment. The democratic way is not the "all or nothing", "white or black", "yes or yes". It is made of mutual concessions. The defeat without palliative of the adversary is not proposed, nor does it demand its unconditional surrender. Because, among other reasons, it is supposed to continue living with him.
However, the negotiation path is not going to come easy or quickly because the starting situation is notably deteriorated. And when it starts, it must also adjust to some conditions. It will demand patience and endurance because it will take a long journey. For this reason, it will be advisable to approach it as a step by step, adopting a gradualist perspective.
Moving forward in stages will be more useful than aiming for a fulminating arrival to a result. In some of these stages, it will be necessary to have recourse to a referendum or consultation agreed on the agreed conditions: without a direct popular revalidation, it will be very difficult to ensure a solid application of the agreement. Finally, this long march will have to be headed hand in hand by the Governments of the State and the Catalan Government. Because the territorial problem has always sounded in Spain - and continues to sound - with a strong Catalan accent, clearly perceptible unless there is intense political deafness. This does not mean that there must also be moments of multilateralism, because there are other actors with legitimated interests to intervene. But without pretending that submerging the "Catalan question" in a general treatment, the appropriate response to the problem can be found more easily.
Without a direct popular revalidation, it will be very difficult to ensure a solid application of any agreement.
Are fellow travelers on this negotiation path? I think not. We just saw it. As far as Catalonia is concerned, it is essential to build a position shared by a large majority. Although at first sight it does not look like it, there are indications that there are elements to be developed in the medium term, overcoming factional interests or personalist concerns. On the part of the State, the Government of President Sánchez voluntarily tries to approach the negotiation route. But his precarious position prevents him from taking more decisive steps, subject as he is to the relentless harassment of frontal adversaries and alleged friends. The media climate and the interests that this climate reflects are particularly hostile to him when it comes to the problem in question.
The conclusion is that the journey towards an effective negotiation does not yet have the basic conditions to start it with some chances of success. We must add to the current difficulties those that will represent the trial that awaits us or the uncertain outcome of future electoral calls. However, despite all the problems that arise, negotiation seems the only viable alternative for the political system to manage without collapsing a problem of this magnitude. Negotiation within the law, certainly. But with an interpretation of the law so generous and imaginative at least, like the one that allowed Andalusia to accede to autonomy via Article 151 without fulfilling its requirements or the one that confers in practice to Navarre a quasi-confederal relationship with the State .
And while this negotiation does not come, an effort of self-containment in language would be very useful, shunning not only the direct injury to the dissenting or the ironic disqualification of their arguments, but also the neglect of their reasons and motivations as if the mere fact of ignoring them I could make them disappear. It is a responsibility of political leaders, communication professionals and all citizens who honestly want to get out of the current labyrinth by the only route offered by democratic politics: negotiate to transact.
This route will have to resort, later than desirable, when we check after the future ruling of the Supreme Court that the problem is still there, claiming a way out more complex than the wrong solutions of criminal law or unilateral adventurism.
https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/02/06/opinion/1549471702_318099.html
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