Rodalies also gives for a general strike

It has rained a lot these days, and guess which service went down this morning: Rodalies. Obviously, when I say that Rodalies is not working, I mean that even what usually functions is not working. The rains caused a slope to collapse, and the train drivers' union refused to work today for safety reasons. And since the Government, Renfe, and Adif fail every day to inform passengers, this morning thousands of users found themselves without trains and, in many cases, without a reinforcement bus service. All the screens at Sants said was that there was no service "due to external causes" (which were the train drivers).

That train drivers want safety for themselves and the passengers is logical, but it was understood that after the Gelida accident, in which a driver died, all inspections had already been carried out and were still being carried out. And the general director of Rodalies assured this morning on TV3 that there is no safety problem at Rodalies.

The fact is that the train drivers have the upper hand and do what they want, the Government of the Generalitat has no authority over the service and the Spanish government doesn't give a damn about Rodalies, and that is how the users have spent yet another day. Today, a journalist from RAC1 who was reporting from the platform was kicked out of Sants, because otherwise he couldn't know if the trains were leaving or not. This has been grounds for a general strike for a long time now.

Meanwhile, yesterday, as expected, the Constitutional Court told the Supreme Court (Magistrate Conde-Pumpido told Judge Marchena) that it had evaded “the genuine meaning of the amnesty”. A full-blown rebuke. And this very morning, the Constitutional Court has already forwarded this ruling to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Judge Llarena continues in “whoever can do, let them do” mode and rushed to provisionally lift the arrest warrant for Puigdemont, to see if he would take the bait and come. As I already told you yesterday, the president in exile will not return until the case is archived and the arrest warrant is definitively annulled. And yesterday he set the political framework for his return:

“We decided to go into exile to engage in politics and we have not stopped until ensuring that the return also has a political meaning. We did not go into exile to defend each person's political parties, but to defend institutions and the rights of the people of Catalonia gravely threatened by article 155 and police and judicial repression, and we will return in the same way. Not in the service of our party, but in the service of our country”.

Puigdemont feels like a winner. He has paid a very high price, but he has avoided prison. He has avoided what he wanted to avoid: that the president of Catalonia would go to prison. Of the many chapters that a book about his nine years in Belgium would have, there is a key one: Puigdemont is arrested and imprisoned in Germany. It seems like the end of the escape. But the German judge who has to deal with it tells the Spanish justice system that he does not see any crime of rebellion and that he will not hand him over to Spain for that crime. Puigdemont will be released from prison. Llarena ends up replying to Germany that he wants Puigdemont for the same crimes as the politicians who are in prison and who will be prosecuted for rebellion, and Puigdemont can leave Germany and return to Belgium.

Now Puigdemont will return soon, as soon as it is safe and he is not at risk of being arrested. If, as he says, he does not want to return as the head of a party, it remains to be seen if he will participate in the electoral campaign for the general elections on November 29th. And, looking even further ahead, it remains to be seen whether he will want to run for the presidency of the Generalitat again. He is aware that he is no longer riding that gigantic wave of 2017 and that many independence supporters are disillusioned. It will not take us long to know which way he will go, because if there is one thing he has not lacked, it has been time to think it over.

Good morning.