‘Procés’, year X: the mystery of the staircase

The ‘process’, the irruption and consolidation of the independence movement as engine of Catalan politics, this 2022 arrives at 10 fingers old. And with an easy division into decades, that is, into hands. Five phalanges for the growing period, from 2012 to 2017, and the other five, descending, as a result of what happened after 1-O. Year X, this 2022, not only in the recount of the decade in Latin, but also unknown, because, as the cliché of the Galician on the stairs says, it is not known if the ‘procés’ is it up or down.

After the clash of five years ago, the conditions have deflated, especially after the 1-O prisoners were released from prison. The dialogue and negotiation table born in January 2020, under pressure from ERC, has already experienced a restart and, according to the words of Pere Aragonès, throughout 2022 should give some tangible result. But the ‘president’ does not have it all with him and has already urged the independence movement to work on “alternatives in case the negotiation runs aground”. “For when it runs aground,” Junts and the CUP always intervene, convinced that it is a matter of time before it fails. And an opportunity to go after the Republicans, who have made the table more than just a banner.

And it is that hogaño begins to appear, again, the triple dead end of yesteryear. The possibilists who advocate negotiation with the State are not betting that any type of vote that includes secession will come out of the dialogue table in the short term. And less than months before the socialist barons play their tricks in the municipal and regional elections May 2023, which this year will have their advance in Castilla y León and Andalusia.

Even the most unilateralist is aware that, with the current strength is not enough to put on the ropes a State that he feels anointed to defend the country’s unity by land, sea and air. The non-independence movement, for its part, continues without sinking its teeth into some Catalan administrations supported by a secessionist vote that withstand cars, carts and, above all, years. It is a trench fight.

At the same time, those siren songs that fueled the independence movement 10 years ago are reactivated. The investment neglect of the State, exemplified in Rodalies, and what Catalanism understands as the harassment of the Catalan language in search of a residualization.

Five plus five. In the first hand, the largest demonstrations in Western Europe are swirling in pursuit of two political reasons: 9-N and 1-O. Years of growth of independence which, however, showed, in the elections, right from the start, a glass ceiling that few attended perhaps when thinking that the almost immediate increase from 15% of the vote to 50% was going to continue in a linear progression until it covered 100% of the Catalans in just weeks. And not.

There is always a date and it is always debatable. But the truth is that it is the massive demonstration of the Onze de Setembre of 2012 that brought about the change of scenery. In that concentration, what until then had been understood as a minority and freak, independence, turned into something ‘mainstream’, central.

The engine of this demonstration was the sovereignist entities, Omnium Cultural and, above all, the newly created Catalan National Assembly, who knew how to manage the success to become one of the main actors of the ‘procés’, in his first five years. The loss of luster and strength of the ANC today is perhaps one of the biggest differences. After the autumn of 2017, the parties have taken absolute control, to the point that the main link of the ‘processist’ decade it is a rivalry between political spaces that, like Saturn, has devoured its children, the entities.

The ‘president’ Arthur More tried to capitalize on that strength of the street, without success. Among other reasons, because CiU did not define itself as independentista. Mas himself had a hard time pronouncing the cursed word and the Unió members got hives. But he played his comfortable 62 seats and opened the door of the chicken coop to the renewed ERC by Oriol Junqueras. The second position of the Republicans, with an uninhibited independence movement, also on issues of convergent corruption, ended up introducing internal tensions in CiU that led to its disintegration, in 2015, before 9-N.

In the second hand is where, in addition, the ‘sorpasso’ of the republicans over the already post-convergent ones is executed. And they do it on the back of a reality principle, until that moment ignored, which is the great reason for division in the independence movement: 1-O did not work. It is not necessary to assess whether or not he was right. Europe did not raise an eyebrow.

Related news

And the independence movement is now looking for a foothold from which to leverage. Eating popcorn with the judicial decisions that leave Spain in a bad place (almost all of them), and at the same time suffering from Scottish showers like when Ursula von der Leyen chooses Spain as the first country where to allocate the essentials fondos Next Generation, while haggling them over to the Poland of the rebellious judiciary.