Pedro Sánchez, to business people: "Concord is also an economic value".

In June 2019, when the Cercle d'Economia conferences were still being held in Sitges, Pedro Sánchez limited his intervention on the Independence bid to veiled criticism of independence. "United in diversity we are stronger," he said. He censured those who want to "build false walls and borders" and ignored the call by the then vice-president of the Government, now president Pere Aragonès, to return to the consensus of the Pedralbes Declaration. Two years later, a 180-degree turn has taken place: the two governments are in agreement to promote dialogue and the Spanish president has landed at the closing of the economic conference, now held at the W Hotel in Barcelona, brandishing the understanding with the Generalitat and the convenience of pardoning political prisoners. He has not done it directly, but his words to business people have been understood. "Concord is also an economic value, and partisan or territorial discord is also an economic burden," he said, and ended by calling for a "reunion" with Catalonia.

Convinced that "there are many more things that unite us than separate us", the socialist leader made it clear that "we will have to meet and meet again in order to continue moving forward", and indirectly endorsed the request that Aragonès made two days ago at the Cercle conference to return to the Pedralbes agreement: "We have to go back to the point where we stopped listening to each other", Sánchez agreed. However, after the president of the Generalitat warned that dialogue would not imply renunciations by the Catalan government, the Spanish president has also made it clear that in the new stage it is necessary "to recognise that nobody is the master of reason". Aragonés was not there to hear those words -he had travelled to Brussels to meet the former president of the Government of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont-, but Catalan Economy Minister Jaume Giró and Catalan Business and Labour Minister Roger Torrentwere. At the end of his speech, in any case, the socialist has ended up stating that "Catalonia needs dialogue, agreement and pacts", and has asked for the entire business community to go along with this task. "This cannot be done by just one government, nor can it be done by two. It is a task for everyone", he assured.

"We need stability and political unity"

Sánchez, however, arrived in Barcelona knowing the job was almost done. At the gates of a key week for the decision on pardons, which could arrive either on the 22nd or the 24th, the socialist leader received backing for his campaign for pardons. While last week he received support from the Socialists' old guard and regional presidents, this Thursday it was the Catalan and Spanish business associations, as well as Catalan bishops, who showed their support. It has been precisely in the framework of the Cercle d'Economia conference that the presidents of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, and of Foment del Treball, Josep Sánchez Llibre, have aligned themselves with the Spanish government and have thus discredited the offensive against pardons that the leader of the opposition, Pablo Casado, has been leading.

Pedro Sánchez, who has focused much of his speech on defending his recovery plan and has guaranteed that "Spain will exceed all its forecasts" economic, has insisted, in an attack on Casado, that "we need stability and political unity". "There is no reason that prevents us from working together for the objectives that will benefit us all," he said, in a message that could be interpreted both economically and politically. The endorsement has been found in the same auditorium, from where shortly before the president of the Cercle d'Economia, Javier Faus, has directly demanded that his government grant pardons to contribute to "social peace". "We are not naive: they will not be the definitive solution, but they will be a step," he said. Prescribing law, politics and words as the foundations of the new political stage between Catalonia and Spain, Faus has shown support of "negotiation" as a meeting point between unilateralism and judicialisation.

And what should the result of this negotiation be? The president of the Cercle, who has called for "compromise" on both sides, has taken the possibility of moving towards a federal state for granted, but has recalled that the Constitution would have to be reformed and has positioned himself in favour of "changes to statutes of autonomy" and the system of financing in the short term. The same line, in fact, in which the Socialists are working. In any case, he ended by warning that "there is no alternative to the lack of agreement". "The only alternative is a long period that would accentuate the social fracture in Catalonia [...] and its economic decline". Sánchez's Concord as an economic value seems to have caught on. "I am grateful for the public political positioning of the Cercle", he ended.