Much Ado About Nothing: Junts’ stance against the government of Pedro Sánchez, soundly staged by Miriam Nogueras, coincided chronologically with the surrender of Feijóo in Abascal, after the catastrophic management of President Mazón. The easy reading is to place the two events in a dominant line in the European panorama of the movement of the right towards the far right. And, therefore, read it as the announcement of a certain grouping of the right.
That Feijóo recognizes the PP’s inability to impose hegemony is clear and the consequences are clear. But in the case of Junts it is something different: noise to demonstrate that it continues to exist. And the pride of an autonomy that must be demonstrated. I have no doubt that right-wing impulses are more rooted than ever in Catalan conservative nationalism than after the failure of conservative nationalism processes It broke away almost silently from the sectors of the left that had united at the moment of the Rupturist apotheosis. But as we emerge from the aftermath of that crisis and as Catalonia enters a period of containment, the gesture of distancing itself from the current government majority is more symbolic than real, because if Junts wants to return to being the Catalan moderate right, as in Pujol’s time, it must know how to play – as the former president did – with both sides. Therefore he cannot hand himself over to the right, even if the body asks him to, nor can he close all the doors to socialists, because there will be times when there will be a need. Noise is simply raising your tone with the intention of gaining negotiating power. And let each party know that Junts can turn to one or the other as appropriate. The problem is that Junts is not experiencing the optimal moment to play this double game without risks. For example, it does not have the Generalitat, which is its great instrument.
In reality, Junts continues to depend, ideologically and practically, on the interests of part of the Catalan economic power. And here it is, in case anyone doubts it, the relationship between former president Carles Puigdemont (and still an icon of the Junts leadership) and the leader of the Catalan employers’ association, Josep Sánchez Llibre, in charge of mediating so that it doesn’t go too far. Foment needs them to play both cards reasonably. For example, vetoing left-wing proposals from PSOE members or proposing initiatives favorable to family businesses or large corporations. Foment wants Junts to be in charge, but always willing to support or veto as suits their convenience.
The role of Junts, therefore, is perfectly defined: track on both sides, depending on the case. An exercise that president Pujol has always carried out with mastery and which enhances the Juventus dynamic processes he had made it difficult. In this now well-known scenario, the question that is in the air but that no one is asking is: where is the left? Social democracy is fading, even in the case of Pedro Sánchez, often presented as the last holdout. And the parties to the left of the PSOE are increasingly cornered, exhausted in the agitation that Podemos projected until it was ravaged by destructive egos and an inability to find a way to be in today’s society, testimony to the sensational shift in social hegemonies. The truth is that European democracy has experienced its best moments in the balance between conservatives, liberals and social democrats in their different variations. And the balance is shifting dangerously towards increasingly radicalized right-wing parties.
