End of cycle, new stage

BarcelonaAfter President Illa receives President Puigdemont at the Catalan government's delegation in Brussels, the cycle opened in 2017 by the Trial and the harsh response of the Spanish state will be closer to closing. It is evident that the prolongation of the repressive cycle due to the judicial branch's resistance to implementing the amnesty has made the road to normalization longer and more difficult. But, little by little, the cycle is closing despite the continued expressions of indignation on both sides.

Reality often prevails over both the intransigent and the unrepentant. President Puigdemont, by agreeing to travel to an official office of the Catalan government in Brussels, confirms his recognition of the current president, while Illa acknowledges the figure of the exiled president and his significance as a leading figure of Catalan nationalism. Now all that is needed is for the amnesty cycle to finally be completed and for Puigdemont to be able to return with all the honors, after the blunder of the toccata and fugue that left everyone off balance on August 8th of last year. And thus brings to a close an episode that has been dragging on since 2017, the Trial, to open a new era that undoubtedly involves the restructuring of Catalan politics, especially in the case of Junts, which needs a profound ideological, organizational, and political renewal if it wants to remain the benchmark for the nationalist right.

Naturally, this meeting, which opens the door to a new era, has the complicity of President Pedro Sánchez and the Spanish government. And, as much as Junts wants to downplay it, it is part of the necessary steps for Puigdemont to return without thinking of fleeing and in this way, after receiving the recognition of his people, he can clear the way to reformulate the political project, with new ideas and free from the burdens of the past. It won't be automatic. There will be noise, and the Spanish right will cry foul, speaking of impunity and making proclamations of indignation at handing over the country to criminals. But, whether the protagonists and the repressors, the victims and the executioners, like it or not, the cycle opened in 2017 is exhausted. And now it's time to turn the page and embark on other paths. And Puigdemont and his entourage will contribute to this by making way for new people to renew and relaunch the Catalan nationalist right, caught between a failed adventure and the colonization of part of its space by the Catalan Alliance.

Puigdemont's return and recognition would place him in a certain place in the history of Catalonia, but they force him to make way so that a space currently frozen in memory and confusion can be reconstructed, one that sought in the image of the president of an exile without epic as a reference point to avoid harm, despite being stuck in evil. A new era begins, based on an understanding of the past, and the entire Catalan political space must come to terms with it. And the Spanish state must accept that this episode is now history. Goodbye to repression and melancholy. We reclaim the word. And those who resist, on both sides, will be exposed.