This Wednesday, Spain's Congress of Deputies will debate the fifth extension of the country's state of alarm as requested by the Pedro Sánchez government, and if approved, it will stretch out the current situation of exception, single command and dubious constitutionality until the end of June.
If the Spanish executive was able to carry out the first three extensions with relative parliamentary ease and no negotiations, on May 6th several political groups, such as the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), retired their support and, thus, all three Catalan pro-independence parties - ERC, Together for Catalonia (JxCat) and the Popular Unity Candidature (CUP) - were in consensus on saying no to the state of alarm. The Spanish government was fished out of the political impasse by two very different forces, the Basque Nationalists (PNV) and Ciudadanos (Cs): the former thus obtained political backing for the holding of elections in the Basque Country in July if it so wishes, while Inés Arrimadas's party gave the coalition the other ten votes it needed, after pressure from the business sector and overtures of political affection from Sánchez.
Now, it seems, the cards have been dealt once more and a new hand has started. The master gambler has offered some juicy bait with the aim of tempting his companions to match his stakes and extend his licence to do whatever he pleases for a whole month more. He has opened talks on several fronts: at the level of Catalonia, with both ERC and JxCat, and also at the level of Spain, with Ciudadanos, in order to have more in favour than against at the moment of voting. Thus, for the Spanish prime minister it is a negotiation with a safety net: Arrimadas will always be there as a backstop - unless her mentor Albert Rivera pulls the carpet from under her feet, and it’s still too early for that.
Since March 13th, when Pedro Sánchez solemnly announced Spain's state of alarm, his attitude towards Catalonia has been as follows: he has centralized the country's single command in his person and in the government of Spain, he has rejected each and every one of the Catalan government's initiatives, from the very early call for total lockdown of Catalonia to prevent the spread of the virus - in the face of which he responded that "the virus does not respond to borders" - to the outstretched hand offered to make decisions jointly during the most difficult phase of the pandemic. Sánchez has treated the autonomous communities as if they were not part of the institutional fabric of Spain, but rather, mere provincial councils. He has not responded to the economic demands put forward to alleviate the crisis, he has refused an interview with the Catalan president and his promises have been at least as volatile as those of Mariano Rajoy.
All this together with constant improvisation in the regulations to be passed, first on the rules of lockdown and now on the process of lifting it, generating confusion among employers and social agents, and reducing the image of the country abroad at a moment that is key from the economic point of view and in the face of European negotiation. The latest invention has been to close borders and impose a 14 day quarantine on foreigners, at a time when many EU countries are embarking on the opposite path and a small window of opportunity is opening to rescue a part of the state's foreign tourism. The damage done to this sector is major, since the option of choosing to travel to a country with closed borders, a quarantine and an extension of the state of alarm until almost July is in effect an invitation to look for an alternative destination, no matter how much it is announced that Spain is returning to normal.
On Saturday, the Spanish prime minister began casting out his baited hook, after the Socialist leadership had mobilized in the middle of last week. In his speech from the government palace he insisted that, little by little, the autonomous communities will regain their full decision-making capacity. I won't suggest to the PM, as journalist Toni Soler did in a tweet, that he should "stick his paternalism some place where it fits", because he's already said it. But I will point out how dangerous it is to offer juicy temptations in politics. On the vast majority of occasions, it means that a trap has been set.