After dropping a stinking bombshell in Congress about brothels and Pedro Sánchez's late father-in-law, Alberto Núñez Feijóo went on strike in Barcelona to promise funding for Catalonia. He did so while the Spanish government and ERC continued negotiations on the same matter, and the possibility (later denied by Junts) of a meeting between the aforementioned Pedro Sánchez and Carles Puigdemont appeared on screen. Feijóo's proposal on the financing of Catalonia contained no fiscal balance studies, not even announcements of millions in funding. It was merely a proposal in a gaseous state that Feijóo himself imagined taking shape "at a table" and not "in a room." Feijóo's imaginary table had a positive connotation, one of transparent and fair negotiation in Spain. The room, on the other hand, functioned as an obscure reference, because it echoed the room where the photo of Puigdemont and Santos Cerdán was taken on the day of their first meeting, which in fact wasn't to negotiate funding but rather the amnesty. It doesn't matter, because everything ends up under the heading "things the Catalans are asking for," demands and negotiations that are ruthlessly shredded and smeared in the media and on junk journalism networks, turning them into an amorphous and illegible mass.
That Santos Cerdán was the negotiator of the amnesty is ammunition for the demagoguery of the nationalist right. Moreover, even in an extraordinary plenary session like last week's, to which Pedro Sánchez appeared cornered, Feijóo and the PP still strayed into this kind of sick Trumpism dedicated to stirring up feces surrounding the family, direct or in-law, of the Spanish president. As if the excavation or fabrication of garbage were in itself a political argument or a government proposal. As for Abascal and his followers, apart from insulting, shouting, and making debate impossible, they ended up repeating the routine of getting up and leaving the chamber. It's surely too late for Spanish parliamentarianism, but punitive measures against unacceptable behavior in the chamber are, increasingly, an urgent necessity.
The financing negotiations, however, continue to give off the impression of leading somewhere different from what each party claims: it is not (and cannot be) a declaration of fiscal and financial sovereignty as ERC claims; nor is it (and cannot be) a system applicable to all autonomous communities as the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) would like to assume, and therefore it is not (and cannot be) a simple round of coffee for everyone as Junts (Junts) denounces. What is it, then? Surely an agreement impossible to reach in a reasonable manner in a context of maximum tension and filth in politics. The latest CIS barometer is only favorable, precisely, to Vox, bad news in which everyone can find their share of the blame, but in which the PP bears, by far, more than anyone else. If this trend continues, the era of junk politics will have only just begun.
