As was predictable, the agreement between the Catalan government and the Spanish ministry of transport for the expansion of the Barcelona-El Prat airport is generating a wave of support and an equally-large avalanche of criticism. The first of these includes the key members of the Catalan executive, a significant part of the parliamentary base of the two coalition parties, Junts and ERC, and the opposition PSC. Coming together in the second are the CUP, which facilitated the investiture of president Pere Aragonès, the Comuns, some sectors of ERC and to a lesser extent Junts, the environmental groups and a range of organizations in the affected municipalities.
The fact that it is an important and controversial infrastructure and that the Spanish minister has already set a completion date, 2030, makes it necessary for the Catalan government to agree to the request for a parliamentary appearance by Pere Aragonès and his vice president, Jordi Puigneró, which has been lodged by the CUP. The government has the opportunity to make a straightforward presentation of its case in Parliament, and the CUP deserves a favourable response given its status as preferred partner of the Catalan executive, and the political group with whom the executive is seeking to bring to fruition legislative projects as important as the next Catalan government budget.
The government owes public opinion the maximum possible transparency on an issue which is so complex and with so much ill will between the two sides. And for this, Parliament is the right place, even without waiting for September if necessary - that's why there is the possibility of calling together Parliament's Permanent Deputation during this month of August.
Because if it is not explained properly, the story that will prevail will be that of Pedro Sánchez, telling, as he did on Tuesday after his audience with Felipe VI in the palace of Marivent, three big lies: that the Spanish government is in compliance with the Catalonia's Statute of Autonomy, that there is co-governance and that the airport agreement will re-launch a Catalonia that was weighted down by the independence process. In fact, the Spanish government almost never complies, co-governance is conspicuous by its absence and the problems arising from the independence process have been police violence, judicial persecution and the economic and financial suffocation to which Catalonia has been subjected from Madrid. Everything else is fake news in the same category as many stories that emerge from the Spanish government's palace.