The meeting between the president of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès, and the vice president of the European Commission, Margaritis Schinas, on Thursday at the Palau de la Generalitat in Barcelona, means the de facto restoration of relations between the Catalan government and the European institutions after seven years have gone by since the last meeting of a Generalitat representative alone with a commissioner and eleven since the last visit from an EC vice president to Plaça Sant Jaume. The meeting, which obviously needed the blessing of the Spanish government, which had previously vetoed any visit of the European institutions to Catalonia as well as the reception of members of the Catalan government in Brussels, is a change and a return to normal. Understanding that normality is when you are able to dialogue and explain what the real situation of the Principality of Catalonia is. The European club is against the independence of Catalonia, as it has shown in the past, and in this aspect there is no underlying change, but what is possible is the dialogue that until now was broken.
Putting aside the differences, one can draw a parallel with Pedro Sánchez and the photo opportunity he has had with Joe Biden in recent days at the NATO summit, a long-awaited moment since relations between the United States and Spain deteriorated seriously after the departure of Spanish troops from Iraq, immediately after José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero arrived in government in 2004, and there are multiple examples of the indifference with which US presidents treated Rajoy, but also - and especially - Sánchez. And thus, Aragonès has received a visit at the Palau from Schinas, a character unknown to the general public but well situated in the European institutions in which he has held a number of positions since 1990, being the Commission's spokesperson between 2014 and 2019. From Schinas, no support should be expected in the field of the political and national aspirations of Catalonia, given his well-known anti-independence position, also highlighted by his family situation: he is married to Mercedes Alvargonzález Figaredo, an Asturian who was formerly chief of staff for the parliamentary leader of the European People's Party.
But the territory of the European institutions must be cultivated, if only to be able to explain - beyond speaking to the multinational forums as former Òmnium president Jordi Cuixart did on Thursday, at the UN - the situation of Catalonia, the repression it suffers and the persecution by the Spanish authorities. The latest and flagrant case of Catalangate is the clearest example, as Cuixart highlighted, that Spain continues and will continue to spy on dissidence and that the state has neither done anything nor intends to do anything to correct what is the most serious case known in Europe of illegal espionage by a state. Cuixart was able to do this in Geneva at the United Nations headquarters, but Aragonès, if he had wanted to, could have done it at the Palau with the vice president of the European Commission.
Because the work of denouncing the situation carried out in the European Parliament through the MEPs of Junts and ERC, led by the exiled Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, is an important and essential job in raising awareness of the harsh reality of Catalan politics and of the exile of some who are active in it. A reality that remains very much installed in repression, as seen this week by the decision of the Spanish Constitutional Court to annul the delegation of the vote of the minister in exile and Catalan MP for Junts, Lluís Puig. This is the real 'agenda of reconciliation' and everything else is empty rhetoric that is carried away on the wind.