Why is the Operation Catalunya investigation commission on hold?

BarcelonaThe Congressional commission of inquiry into the state's sewage system is on hold. At least as far as appearances are concerned. The last ones were in May, shortly before the Leire Díez and Santos Cerdán cases broke out, and although several were agreed upon but still pending, no one has testified on the committee for five months. Despite the reduction in activity, this Tuesday it approved a new extension to continue working beyond October 24, when its activity was due to end. Until now, the committee has mostly testified politicians and key figures from the Mariano Rajoy administration, but it remains pending approval to appear for profiles with responsibilities from 2018 onwards, when Pedro Sánchez was in power and when the majority of the Pegasus espionage cases occurred.

The extension agreed this Tuesday - in a session in which the conservative Agustín Parra was also appointed as Noelia Núñez's replacement as second vice-president of the committee's bureau - after Núñez resigned in July - This is the second, since the commission's timetable had to be extended a year ago. Initially, this body only dealt with what is known as Operation Catalunya, that is, the dirty war against the independence movement during the PP governments through the Ministry of the Interior and using state structures. In order to gather evidence from this period, the then head of the Interior, Jorge Fernández Díaz, and the Prime Minister himself, Mariano Rajoy, have served on the commission.

However, for several months now, its members have also been investigating the Pegasus spying carried out by the State against independence supporters, which began with the Popular Party (PP) in power and continued when the Socialists took office. However, the degree of knowledge the executives had in this regard is not public. In April of that year, the Junts parliamentary group requested that Fernando Grande-Marlaska, the current Minister of the Interior, and his Secretaries of State for Security be summoned to testify. The current Commissioner General of Information of the National Police, Eugenio Pereiro Blanco, and several police inspectors have also been included. For the moment, these appearances have not been accepted.

In fact, fifteen previously agreed appearances remain to be held, such as that of the Director General of the National Police between 2012 and 2016, Ignacio Cosidó Gutiérrez. Commission sources explain that since the summer, the groups have been talking among themselves about resuming these appearances, but so far nothing has changed. Thus, the groups agreed today to a new extension without a clear horizon for further appearances.