Antoni Bassas' analysis: "Jaume Giró, a symptomatic resignation"

Early morning news in Catalan politics: Jaume Giró has resigned from his seat as a deputy and from his position on the national executive committee of Junts. This is the statement issued tonight, following a leak.

Giró's resignation is symptomatic of a current state of affairs. Remember: Giró had previously become CEO of the La Caixa Foundation, after having worked at Gas Natural, Repsol, Petrocat, and Petronor, among other companies.

That's why, when he joined the Esquerra-Junts coalition government led by Aragonès as Economy Minister, Junts boasted of being able to fish in the waters of the Ibex and the business world. That was May 2021. But a year later, in October 2022, Giró ceased to be a Minister because Junts broke up the coalition government. Relations between Giró and the party soured. Giró was against leaving, so Junts wouldn't give up any share of power or influence. Even when, in June 2022, Puigdemont had offered him to be a candidate for mayor of Barcelona, ​​he asked for a week to consider it, at the end of which he concluded that it didn't seem right to leave the Finance Ministry to be a candidate. Today, upon folding his position, he stated: "The party's current orientations do not coincide with my way of understanding the politics that I believe the country needs today." And also: "Politics is, all too often, excessively tactical. Party interests are prioritized over those of the country, which hinders collaboration between the major forces and, in turn, the well-being and progress of the country."

Certainly, a senior executive in the private sector suffers in politics, because it operates at different speeds and with different obedience. In fact, Giró already experienced it during his brief stint as a candidate for the presidency of Barcelona, Joan Laporta, whose highly personal approach to handling the issue of guarantees was not acceptable. Giró's departure is symptomatic, we said, about the delicate situation of a party that has more mayors than any other or that influences Spanish politics but whose leader is in exile, sees a loss of votes to Alianza and hasn't quite defined a policy of pacts, which is what Giró would like, especially considering that when there are elections, Junts should be able to make a pact with someone in the Parliament. Speaking of Junts, today we explained that at yesterday's meeting in Belgium of the Junts leadership, Puigdemont explained that he had told Isla that Sánchez's situation was critical and that this fall they would have to decide whether to withdraw his support, which is already a kind of annoying song.

And we conclude with images of a protest: the one that took place yesterday in Bilbao against the presence of the Israel-Tech team in the Vuelta, which forced the cancellation of the stage finish. The protests will continue, and in a road cycling race, they're difficult to stop, because we're not talking about controlling access to a pavilion but rather sealing off a route of hundreds of kilometers. But the Vuelta says it can't expel the Israel-Tech team because it would be punished by the international organization to which it belongs. Therefore, if the Israeli team doesn't decide to fold, the problems will continue. Toni Padilla explains it very well on this page: The team is full of riders of various nationalities, is not a national team, so to speak, but a commercial team run by a Tel-Aviv-based businessman who finances Netanyahu's party.

The debate isn't new: should athletes pay for political protests? Remember we discussed whether Russian concert artists should have their performances suspended when Russia invaded Ukraine, for example?

The problem is that, while governments used sanctions and exclusions against Russia, the same isn't true against Israel. And you can't expect that, after seeing a massacre daily in the media and online, people won't protest wherever they can, and a cycling event is ideal for this purpose. All protests have local political leverage, but the human indignation over the Israeli government's massacre in Gaza is genuine. And it erupted in Bilbao, just as it began to erupt in Catalonia when the Israeli team passed through our roads.

Good morning