Spanish politics has stages of incomparable turmoil. These days the acceleration has reached a degree of excitement that makes one fear for the coronary health of governments, politicians, propagandists, and believing citizens in general. Trying to understand the world that surrounds us in full acceleration and once we have exhausted the quotes from the cynic Machiavelli, the blessed Rousseau, the provocateur Nietzsche, and the brave Arendt, we are only left to surrender ourselves to the wisdom of James Bond. Politics today responds to the “shaken, not stirred” (shaken, not stirred) of yet another Martini that we know cannot end well.

"We will not vote for Pedro Sánchez because we have been burned". That is how the secretary general of Junts, Jordi Turull, responded this week to journalist Ariadna Oltra on Els matins when she asked him what his party would do if they were decisive again in the Congress of Deputies. What has happened in these three years for Junts' conclusion to be this? What has broken and, above all when, if in the end it seems that the amnesty will be able to be applied to former president Carles Puigdemont? L'ARA has reconstructed the key moments of this tortuous relationship that began in the summer of 2023 after years of little contact following the Process.

Spanish and Catalan reactionarism rejected last week the emergency decrees on housing that could alleviate, if not resolve, the residential emergency situation that a significant part of the population is suffering. There was a social outcry for it to be addressed. Junts has adopted the narrative of large property holders and real estate speculators, as well as that of small and medium-sized rentiers who have contributed to straining, and in what way, this market. With their position, they have not defended the interests of their voters nor of those who are owners of their own homes, but rather those of speculators with tourist apartments and large flat holders. They present it as a mere technical issue, but the subject is radically political. Either we defend particular interests or general ones, that is indisputable. When someone questioned the existence of class struggle, the great financier Warren Buffett said: “There is class struggle, and the one winning is mine”. Buffett is a speculator who was sensible enough to say that he does not understand why a tax rate below that of his secretary is applied to him. There are those who are in politics to defend lobbies, vulture funds and extractive minorities. It does not hide it that they wrap themselves in flags or falsely technical speeches. Experts claim that the agreement to validate one of the decrees was done, and that it was Puigdemont and his unpleasant representative in Madrid who backed out.

1. The crux of the transaction between Junts and the PSOE to facilitate Pedro Sánchez's investiture was the amnesty, which finally materialized after much struggle and effort. The agreement unleashed a wave of resentment the likes of which had never been seen in Madrid (we, however, already knew it well enough here). Judges, economic powers, media outlets, and all the mechanisms of the deep state reacted to the offense by orchestrating a major hunt for the Spanish prime minister and his inner circle. Finally, in an ending worthy of a Greek tragedy, Sánchez has ended up struck down by those who had been giving him air for more than three years. What is my assessment of all this? Junts has squandered a truly historic opportunity to assert the country's interests instead of focusing everything on the restitution of grievances for the victims of the 'Procés'. Both causes were legitimate, of course, but priorities had to be chosen. And the facts are stubborn: it is either one thing or the other. With a government on the horizon in which the PP and Vox will have a comfortable majority, we can forget for many years about better financing, the forgiveness of a part of the FLA debt, transparency in fiscal balances, and necessary investments in infrastructure. Nothing at all will remain of it.

Political earthquake in the Alt Empordà. The municipal government of Junts, led by Lídia Ferrer, has decided to keep Roger Pinart, the councillor of El Port de la Selva who chose the swastika over the espadrille, in one of the latest controversies related to Aliança Catalana. The leadership of Carles Puigdemont's party has demanded the immediate dismissal of Pinart –who is not a member of Junts but is part of the municipal executive–, but Ferrer has decided to give him "total support". In statements to ARA, Ferrer defends his "magnificent work as councillor for Security" at the city council, where he is the second deputy mayor, and downplays his controversial tweet in favor of the swastika. The mayor admits the clash with the Junts leadership, but makes it clear that she will in no case dismiss him and that the party must respect her decision.

Allow me to start the analysis by going off-script, but it is great news that yesterday 55,000 people attended the first farewell concert by Oques Grasses at the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium. Filling an Olympic stadium is not within everyone's reach, and even less so doing it four days in a row. Do not miss the chronicle written by our musical specialist, Xavier Cervantes. Music sung in Catalan reaches people, it has an audience, an audience of all ages, including many young people, and when there is good news for our culture it must also be said.

Change of tone from Salvador Illa. This Wednesday was the first plenary session of Parliament after the total amnesty for Carles Puigdemont and the exiles, but also of the early election in Spain, and the President of the Generalitat has fully entered the pre-election campaign in the control session. The socialist leader, and great defender of Pedro Sánchez, has referred time and again to the Spanish elections of November 29 and has launched a forceful attack against the opposition. "Three acronyms, PP, Vox, and Junts; one single vote, blocking access to housing," he snapped, in reference to the two decrees that the three formations rejected last week.

The day after the leader of Junts in Congress, Miriam Nogueras, completely closed the door to facilitating a PP and Vox government, the party's secretary general, Jordi Turull, also ruled out investing the Spanish president and socialist leader: "We will not invest Pedro Sánchez, because we have been very badly burned by this person," he stated in an interview with TV3. In fact, he stressed that the Brussels pact, the seed of the last legislature in the State, "was an agreement in historical terms, but it was one thing after another and, always finding excuses, everything kept getting delayed."

Not even the best screenwriter could have foreseen it better. Three years after the amnesty gave Pedro Sánchez another term, the amnesty has also put an end to it. The acceleration of events following the eviction case of Maricarmen Abascal has meant that the dissolution of the Courts has practically coincided with the Constitutional Court's order to the Supreme Court to immediately apply the amnesty to the leaders of the 'Procés' and with the withdrawal of the arrest warrants for former president Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín, and Lluís Puig. A sword of Damocles that they had been carrying for nine years. However, after almost a decade, the most difficult part remains for Carles Puigdemont: the true return.

The former president of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont has declared the end of the "political repression" stage following the 1-O, after the Constitutional Court fully endorsed the amnesty. The decision represents, he said, a defeat for the various Spanish public powers that have put obstacles in the way of the law's application "for strictly political reasons." The institutional appearance of the former head of Government took place this afternoon, a few hours after the Supreme Court also announced the lifting of his arrest warrant, which represents the first definitive step for him to return from exile to Catalonia. The leader of Junts has claimed the "enormous political importance" of the law, which disavows the repression and makes it evident that "this was not the way." However, he warned that the political conflict with the State remains in force: "In terms of the Catalonia-Spain relationship, nothing is solved today [...]. The amnesty is not in itself a solution," he claimed from Waterloo.

The publication of the calling of early elections to the Official State Gazette (BOE) kicked off the pre-campaign this Tuesday. Pedro Sánchez seeks to drag the progressive vote mobilized by the housing crisis and turn around the result predicted by the polls, which give a majority to the right and the far right. Everything will depend, however, on the correlation of forces resulting from the polls on November 29, and much of the attention in the campaign will be on Junts, which already tipped the balance in this last Spanish legislature. A position of calculated balance and equidistance is expected from the Junts members in the campaign, but the spokesperson in Madrid, Miriam Nogueras, has already assured that they will not facilitate a PP and Vox government.

I do not usually agree with Junts on many things. However, regarding housing, their vote against Friday's decree contains a great economic sense which, as a science, is above any ideology.

Could the refusal to vote for the housing decrees in the Congress of Deputies benefit Junts? The calling of early elections by Spanish President Pedro Sánchez, will it allow him to gain support, stop the decline detected by the polls, or, on the contrary, will it take its toll? Issues related to housing navigate, in the electoral and communicative sphere, between what is technically called a positional issue and a valence issue. That is to say, on one hand, parties have different positions (proposals), which in this case can oscillate between positions more pro-market or pro-intervention (often aligned with the logic of left and right). On the other hand, there are valence issues, a way of focusing on a question that, a priori, has an opposing position, but which no one defends. For example, the idea that everyone has the right to housing is, politically, a valence position. Rarely will a politician give a public speech defending the opposing position. This also applies in many other areas: it is hard to think that a party can win votes by defending corruption or incompetence.

We live in dangerous times for truth and coherence. Polarization has devoured the capacity to confront ideas –replacing adversaries with enemies– and electoral slogans have replaced laws. There is no legislation, only announcements are made. Problems are not solved, patches are applied. Responsibilities are not demanded from governments but from the opposition. In general, common sense went into exile years ago.

Definitely, Junts has made its own profile clear in Congress in a week where all eyes were on Carles Puigdemont's party. The pressure from the left had no effect and the 'juntaires' struck down the housing decrees, contributing to an institutional crisis that threatens to lead the State to new elections. The assessment the party makes is positive: they are the only Catalan party –besides the PP and Vox delegations– that has distanced itself from the proposals from Moncloa. In fact, 'juntaires' sources explain that they have not stopped receiving "congratulations" from small property owners, who had demanded they strike down the decrees (some of the letters were published by the party itself on social media).

The political game is accelerating. It is not clear that the actors know where they are going, but it is clear that they are accelerating. As a result, we are all likely accelerating towards new elections. The call will depend on the new period of reflection of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, who had not calculated that the haste with which the housing decrees have been managed could end the legislature. How did we reach a parliamentary defeat that puts the legislature against the ropes? With a combination of irresponsibility, greed, opportunism, pressure, and more of a desire to patch things up than to solve them. To begin with, the irresponsibility of the Madrid PP, which acted with cruelty and indifference in a case that required empathy from the administration to avoid the eviction of an 87-year-old person. Irresponsibility also from a left that tries to act as opposition and government at the same time and that, in its struggle with its own left, competes to be at the head of the demonstration.

Yesterday, Congress struck down the housing decrees with the votes of the PP, Vox, and Junts. It may seem like just another episode in a legislative term that gambles its survival on every vote, but it is more than that. A conflict, present throughout Europe, long postponed and never resolved, has returned to the center of politics. A conflict that situates itself unambiguously on the left-right axis, between liberalization and intervention. A fracture between those who have a home and those who do not, between those who will be able to leave an apartment as an inheritance and those who never will.

Gabriel Rufián asked this Friday for "a cool head" from Pedro Sánchez when deciding whether to press the red button to call early elections. The republican spokesperson said this because on the left of the PSOE there is "nothing to add up" – the Sumar space has not yet chosen a visible face nor has it negotiated what its coalition will be like –. This has been one of Rufián's obsessions for months: to bring together the left-wing and pro-independence forces from across the State into a broad front to try to maximize the vote – a proposal that has met with the frontal rejection of Oriol Junqueras –. But beyond how this space is reconfigured, Rufián ignored that if the Spanish legislature ends, the main pacts that ERC still has to fulfill will also be left as dead letters. Without going any further, the new financing model for Catalonia, the star pact that led ERC to invest Salvador Illa, would not see the light of day.

Housing is undoubtedly the great problem of today's society, and there is no magic solution, nor, above all, a quick one. However, there are two elements that are certain: the first is that families are forced to allocate an increasingly larger portion of their income to it, especially if they are renting. And the second is that this excessive economic effort causes many people, when suffering any circumstance that leads to a drop in income – such as job loss or a health problem – to be unable to afford the mortgage or rent payment. Becoming a vulnerable person is not that difficult in today's world, and its bitterest face is evictions.

This morning began with a rumor that turned into a question: after Junts announced that it will not vote for the two housing decrees, will Pedro Sánchez announce the calling of elections? Because the scenario is favorable: the Maricarmen case has gone around the world (it has even reached the Pope), it has brought people out onto the streets; with the two decrees, the PSOE was siding with the people on the street, ergo if there has ever been a minimally favorable situation for the PSOE to call elections, it was this one. The Maricarmen case has erased Ceuta from the debate. With Ceuta you could not go to elections, but with Maricarmen you can. Now there is a clean cut: right and left.