in Gelida (Barcelona), three weeks ago, is much more than a railway tragedy. The collision of a convoy with a wall on the AP-7, which collapsed in its path, and the subsequent management is the still image of the central Government, the lack of coordination between Administrations and the technical difficulty of being able to guarantee optimal service in the short term. The crisis also gives oxygen to the pro-independence parties and entities, which are trying to convert citizen frustration into support for their demand. However, beyond sharing the diagnosis and the commitment to wear down the Government, the secessionists continue not to put aside their differences,
to a Catalan Executive that is trying to find a way out of its worst crisis in a year and a half. In the case of the pro-independence parties, which lost their majority in the last elections, this is a golden opportunity at the political level. “The plaster that hid the incompetence of the Illa Government has fallen,” summarized yesterday the spokesman for Junts per Catalunya, Josep Rius, in reference to how the situation has cracked the socialist discourse of excellence in management and the commitment to close collaboration with the central Government as the way to unravel files such as the problems in Rodalies.
In 2007, with the socialists in the presidency of the Generalitat, the railway chaos unleashed by the high-speed works and the suspension of the service unleashed citizen unrest that, under the slogan We are a nation and we say enough is enough. We have the right to decide about our infrastructure. It was one of the first stations on the path of the process and hence the independence movement sees the opportunity.
Illa’s absence due to her convalescence also adds an element of drama to a crisis management full of chiaroscuros and that for now has resulted in a never-before-seen technical attention to the state of the railway network. “This Government does not understand any other way of working than the one I have explained to it, which is that of collaboration and solutions,” the Presidency advisor, Albert Dalmau, insisted last Wednesday during the control session in Parliament. The independence movement has managed to make the political debate once again revolve around the concept of sovereignty, although all actors decline it in different ways. Most of the reproaches point to the Generalitat acting as a lightning rod for the Government in the crisis, avoiding pointing fingers. Adif is responsible for the infrastructure and Renfe is the service provider, but the Catalan Executive is the holder of the competition.
“We have a problem and it is called Spain. More than 20 years ago we heard announcements, promises and rains of millions but that is why we say enough is enough,” criticized Rius. From Puigdemont’s party they ask to suspend the transfer of Rodalies agreed between the socialists and the republicans and see it as necessary for Renfe to stop being the operator of the service, which they believe should be assumed by Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat.
Esquerra, discursively trapped between the deployment of the transfer agreed with the PSOE and the criticism of the Government, sees the new mixed company that it pilots as a flying goal in the race for total sovereignty and asks that this agreement be accelerated. “The appointment of Òscar Playà as head of Renfe Catalonia [] “It is one more step on the path of Catalonia taking control of its trains,” said the number two of the Republicans, Elisenda Alemany, who also accuses Junts of having forgotten about the trains when the Generalitat governed.
The CUP, for its part, asks the two majority pro-independence parties to “abandon the sterile pact” with the central government and “bet on a strategy of confrontation with the State,” as explained by its national spokesperson, Su Moreno. Aliança Catalana also sees independence as the only way out. “The progressive degradation of each of the country’s public services shows that the restitution of the Catalan State is no longer an option, it is a vital necessity,” said its leader Sílvia Orriols, last Wednesday.
The discontent over Rodalies’ poor service will have the opportunity to be measured on the street this Saturday. There, too, the independence movement will have its own thermometer; the Catalan National Assembly and the Consell de la República have called for a march. “Without our own resources,” said last Friday Lluís Llach, president of the Catalan National Assembly, who presented the mobilization together with his counterpart from the Consell de la República, Jordi Domingo. The event coincides in date with the one promoted by the user platforms, but both parties were unable to reach an agreement to merge. “If unity requires excluding talk of independence, it is not full unity,” added Domingo regarding the more transversal approach that the Network of Train User Platforms of Catalonia wants to give.
“We call for massive participation [en las manifestaciones]but we should not be confused. The leadership of the solutions comes from the independence movement, the leadership of the chaos comes from the hands of the PP and the PSOE,” Rius asked. Puigdemont’s party, like ERC and the CUP, will send representatives to both demonstrations and set a profile. “It is a demonstration against dependence on Spain and we have to raise our voices against a system that makes us dependent,” defended the Junts spokesperson. Alamany, for his part, believes that the center of the demand should be to “accelerate the transfer, to have more sovereignty in Catalonia.” “Without mobilization or rupture there will be no real solutions either for Rodalies or for the structural crisis that the country is suffering,” added the anti-capitalist spokesperson.
The number two of the PSC, Lluïsa Moret, confirmed yesterday that her party will not go to the demonstrations and once again called on the independentists to achieve a country pact in Rodalies. He also avoided assessing whether the current crisis encourages secessionism. “As always, we are focused on finding solutions. We are not looking for profits. We are focused on solutions,” he stated.
