Jaume Reixach, 1 September 2024
Image; The president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, in the Patio de los Naranjos with the other members of the Catalan government (ACN)
The pro-independence movement – parties and organisations – is bewildered and disoriented. This is logical. We are in the 21st century and Catalonia is fully inserted in the European Union and in the Western Atlantic bloc of an irreversibly globalised world (this is the consequence and destiny of the civilisation of the Internet).
To propose and work, in these historical coordinates, for the secession of a portion of EU territory – a project that only benefits Vladimir Putin’s strategy of weakening Europe – is a suicidal utopia, with neither head nor tail. Is it legitimate to be pro-independence? Yes, of course it is. But this does not mean that, here and now, it is not a colossal error of concept and perception.
ERC, Junts x Catalunya and the CUP are immersed in congressional processes, trying to maintain and revive a flame that has been extinguished. The leaderships of Oriol Junqueras and Carles Puigdemont are totally amortised, after the failure of the process and the unfortunate events of autumn 2017. In spite of everything, both want to continue at the foot of the cannon, without realising that the troops they are dragging behind them are increasingly diminished and unmotivated. They’ll stew it up, they’ll eat it up.
Meanwhile, President Salvador Illa and the Government of the Generalitat are getting down to work, full steam ahead. With the appointment of the councillors and the structure of senior officials, the PSC has built a solid backbone to be able to manage the competencies assumed by the regional administration with solvency and efficiency.
We will begin to see the first results of the change quickly. Managing and administering a prosperous and modern European territory of 8 million inhabitants is not a superhuman task. On the contrary, it is grateful. The PSC has a proven pool of municipal officials, experienced in day-to-day management, who will easily be able to transfer their proven experience to the regional level.
The power of the socialist leaders who occupy the Generalitat’s organisation chart deserves a great deal of respect. This is not a government of apprentices. Salvador Illa is at the head of a very powerful machine that, wisely directed, will be implacable and impregnable to the opposition that Carles Puigdemont can bring together and exercise.
It is not only the Generalitat. The PSC governs in Barcelona City Council, in the main cities of the country (L’Hospitalet, Tarragona, Reus, Lleida, Sabadell, Mataró…), in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, in three of the four deputations, has a presence in the Council of Ministers and party activists chair important public companies (Renfe, Aena, Indra, Enagás, CZF…). Never in democratic history has a Catalan party concentrated as much power as the organisation led by Salvador Illa, a new phenomenon without parallel. Of course, there is no other country or territory in the European Union where the socialist party and the left accumulate as much power (ERC and Comunes) as in the case of Catalonia.
President Salvador Illa therefore has a double responsibility. To lead, in an intelligent and exemplary manner, the management of the Generalitat – I am convinced that he will do so – and, at the same time, to turn Catalonia into a reference point and bastion of European and world social democracy, a practical alternative to cannibalistic neoliberalism.
Catalonia’s history has had many ups and downs. Since the death of Franco, nationalism has been the predominant political vector, both with the presidencies of the Convergents (Jordi Pujol, Artur Mas, Carles Puigdemont and Quim Torra) and with the tripartite presidencies of Pasqual Maragall and José Montilla. And so it has gone: economic decline, destruction of the savings banks, flight of large companies (La Caixa, Naturgy, Banco Sabadell…), unforgivable delay in the implementation of renewable energies, institutional disrepute, decline in the social use of the Catalan language, degradation of education, etc.
With Salvador Illa we are entering a new phase, which will be marked by the recovery of enthusiasm and excellence. The attacks received from the hyperventilating pro-independence movement, accusing him of being the ‘most Spanishist’ president, are totally gratuitous and superfluous.
A president of the Generalitat who advocates a substantial improvement in autonomous financing, who promotes the federalisation of the State, who defends his own management of the Cercanías, who has created, for the first time, a Department of Linguistic Policy, who defends the extension of the social use of Catalan and its recognition in the European Union, whose priority is to improve the education system, based on linguistic immersion… cannot be labelled ‘Spanishist’. For the same reasons, the Madrid political and media ‘cavern’ accuses him of being a ‘submarine of the pro-independence’. This means that we are doing well.
We are starting September with new shoes. The new Government of the Generalitat – with the support of the business community, the trade unions, the city councils, the provincial councils and the Spanish President, Pedro Sánchez – can and must lead the great transformations that the Catalonia of 8 million people needs to become a leading European territorial community. Faced with the growing threat – here and everywhere – of the xenophobic and populist far-right, we have a golden opportunity to demonstrate that in Catalonia, with socialist and left-wing hegemony, we are capable of building a cohesive society guided by democracy and social justice.
In this sense, we can be an example and a driving force for the rest of Spain and for the European Union, which is more disoriented and paralysed than ever. Peace in the streets, prosperity in companies and for workers, water for farmers, expanding the housing stock at affordable prices, improving disadvantaged neighbourhoods, quality education in schools and decongested hospitals. This is the government programme of the ‘Spaniard’ Salvador Illa.
I will help him to put it into practice. For the first time in many decades in Catalonia we have a government that unites, and we must work together to strengthen it. I can say loud and clear that my long personal, professional and political struggle, as a Catalan citizen, journalist and publisher, has been crowned with success, and I want it to be the success of all of us.
https://www.eltriangle.eu/es/2024/09/01/el-presidente-mas-espanolista
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