We must avoid the uncontrolled fall through the slide of degradation and gain time, so that if the solution is not viable now the door of dialogue would not be closed forever

 There is no solution, only the way out of concluding a deal on the disagreement



Joan Coscubiela (Barcelona, ​​1954) was secretary general of CCOO in Catalonia between 1995 and 2008; he became a national celebrity after his speech at the Parliament of Catalonia on September 7, 2017, when he denounced as spokesman for ‘Catalunya Si Que es Pot’ the performance of the pro-independence parties  (watch and read the speech below in the page).  

He received the standing applause of the members of Parliament of the PSC, the Citizens, the PP and the major part of his own party. He was a member of the Spanish Parliament for ‘Iniciativa per Catalunya’ between 2011 and 2015. He has just published Empantanados (Peninsula), a book that gathers his most recent political experiences in Catalonia.

 

  
We are still stuck, trapped in a huge political quagmire from which we are unable to leave.

The sooner we assume that in the medium term there is no solution to the conflict and we start looking for a way out -which is not the same- the sooner we will begin to emerge from the quagmire.

There is no solution through agreement. The proposal of a non-binding and agreed referendum, under the terms defended by Rubio Llorente, is by now spoiled. No matter how much now, but too late, the pro-independence movement that despised the proposal as a screen already past would try to resuscitate it. The same thing happens to the federal reform of the Constitution, a proposal that never left the federalist coteries. As of today, we are much further from a solution than in September 2017.

For years there have been many who have underestimated the depth of the conflict and the seriousness of its consequences, neglecting the adversary, believing their own deceptions and ignoring reality.

The pro-independence movement, drunk by the success of its mobilizations, came to believe the fiction with which they fed the illusion of its people and kept it against all evidence. They belittled half of the citizens of Catalonia, ignored the strength of the State and generated the fiction of an express and low cost DUI with international recognition. Read now, it sounds like a joke in bad taste, but in the moments of ecstasy just remembering these evidences involved being stoned in the public forum of social networks.

The PP fed, and lived politically from, the conflict with the pro-independence movement, repeatedly denied its strength betting everything to the imminent descent of the "souflé". And when it was overwhelmed, delegated its political responsibilities to the Courts of Justice.

If I remember these events it is not just for the sake of looking back, but because these behaviors weigh like a slab and even today condition the performance of their protagonists.

The pro-independence movement, which has not yet been able to publicly assume the unfeasibility of its project or its serious errors, is discredited, half united only by its solidarity with the prisoners. They continue settled in the mandate of October 1, ignoring that there is no such democratic mandate since it is based on laws, those of September 6 and 7, clearly unconstitutional and illegitimate because they were approved trampling the rights of half of the citizens of Catalonia. Maybe that's the reason why in their story they pay such a little amount of attention on those days, as if they never existed.

In addition, important sectors of the pro-independence movement maintain the flame of unilateralism that, in its new fiction story, awaits the momentum to light again.

On the opposite side, the most holy trinity of the rights, in order to defeat the independence movement, is betting on an exemplary sentence that sometimes appears, in its words, more revenge than Justice. At the same time it continues without presenting any political proposal and boycotts all those presented by other actors.

In this scenario, in which there is no solution, it is urgent to find a way out, if we do not want the conflict to become chronic as well as social and political degradation to increase.

It is not easy, we are immersed in a perfect storm, in which the trial of the independence leaders and the May elections are going together. But we should not throw in the towel for that.

To find a way out, the first thing to do is to reverse the trend, go from escalation to de-escalation of the conflict, a process that even if it doesn’t seem like it has already begun. In the pro-independence world the grandiloquent declarations continue, but in the realm of facts the acts of disobedience are a thing of the past and in their place there is assumption of the constitutional framework.

On the other side, we have a Government of Pedro Sánchez that, with the support of Unidos Podemos and the PNV, has generated a strong discontinuity in relation to Rajoy's executive and has assumed the political risk of seeking a way out.

It seems evident that this will be not possible before the summer. The results of the polls will be decisive, which at this point we do not know yet whether or not they will include those of the general elections. And it will also be very important the sentence issued by the Supreme Court that, between the acquittal and the crime of rebellion, has a lot of legal margin at its disposal.

At this very moment it is not possible, but the way we get to the elections and the way we get out of the polls will be decisive in order to continue with these efforts or to abort them for a long time. That is the reason why the battle of the 2019 Budgets was and is so important and explains the ultramontane reaction of the Spanish right, more terribly Spanish than ever.

Given the impossibility of an agreed solution, the time has come to look for a way out, by concluding a deal on the disagreement.

What does it mean concluding a deal on disagreement? It is what we do every day, even if we are not aware of it, in our personal and professional relationships. It is very common in politics and an example are those tiresome statements of European summits, when they are not able to reach an agreement. In collective bargaining it is common to close a conflict in which agreement is impossible, agreeing on disagreement to leave open the way to dialogue.

No doubt the so-called Catalan conflict is a much more complicated terrain because it has its roots in the swampy territory of identities and feeds on emotions, closer to anger and hatred than to outrage. In this scenario, in which aggressiveness, intolerance and fundamentalism proliferate, it is not easy to mobilize the moderate and sensible segments of each bloc, or the "plagued" equidistant.

Concluding a deal on disagreement is to do with cooling the climate, skirting the underlying conflict, limiting and not exaggerating the field and scope of disagreements, seeking a shared space in the rules of democratic game that we have given to ourselves together. It is about avoiding the uncontrolled fall through the slide of the degradation, of gaining time, so that if the solution is not viable now the door of the dialogue is not closed forever.

I warn the purists, among others those who raised their voices against the figure of the "rapporteur", that concluding a deal on disagreement poses a problem. The outcomes will always be technically imperfect and politically ugly, but they have the beauty of impossible challenges and useful bets.

Concluding a deal on disagreement is not a task that can fall only on the backs of daring politicians, unless we want to fill the cemetery of politics with courageous politicians.

The involvement of the majority is essential. Of the citizens who, with their vote, will decide the way forward in the next elections, whenever they take place. And of the media, professionals, analysts and talk-show guests. If we continue to feed what Jordi Évole, in a brilliant definition, called the fast food of controversies, concluding the deal on disagreement just looking for a way out will be an impossible task.

In the next few hours we will know where we are bound for. The reactionary right moved its chip this weekend and, although it has failed in the mobilization, has managed to block the way to the exit for now. Now, with the voting of the amendments to the totality of the Budgets, it is up to the pro-independence parties to play their cards since they have the opportunity to keep alive the hope of a way out.

I admit that it is not so easy for them; their margin is very narrow because they will have to make a complicated and risky decision in the same week when the trial of their leaders begins with requests for serious prison sentences.

I do not dare to ask them for the courage they demand from others, only to calibrate well the strength and consequences of all their actions, if only they could be learning from the lessons of the fall of 2017. They would face less difficulty if they decide to socialize the political costs of their decisions, just the opposite of what they have always done, litigating between them just to see who will be branded as traitor and Judas.

The independence leaders face the complex challenge of striking a balance between the ethics of their convictions and the ethics of their responsibilities. Both are legitimate, of course, but the dose of each of them used in their decision will result in very important consequences, including keeping the door open to try to find a way out or closing it for a long time.

https://www.eldiario.es/zonacritica/solucion-solo-salida-pactar-desacuerdo_6_866923325.html