With a few days left until the end of the official holidays and the return of the Catalan government to its daily tasks, the president, Quim Torra, took the opportunity of speaking to the Catalan Summer University, which is held annually in Prada de Conflent, to set out his road map for when the political year restarts: democratic and peaceful confrontation with the Spanish state if independence is the goal and the recovery of the political initiative. Torra's call to confrontation and taking risks comes 48 hours after his vice-president, Pere Aragonès, in an interview with this newspaper, advocated for the independence movement to move beyond the debate on the unilateral path.
Aragonès, the best-placed candidate in ERC to head its candidacy in the next Catalan election, was marking territory in line with his party's leader in provisional detention, Oriol Junqueras. The party some time ago distanced itself from maximalist positions and feels comfortable with its rhetoric of expanding the support base for independence before picking new fights with the state. In Junts per Catalunya, however, there are various groups, with the Puigdemont-Torra faction strongly supporting confrontation thanks to an absolute mistrust in the path of dialogue.
This Monday, Junqueras was signaling that the holding of an election after the Supreme Court's sentence was an option that shouldn't be dismissed. That's not the line of either Puigdemont or Torra, nor that of JxCat's leaders, not particularly favourable to renouncing the momentum of the 2017 election and the pro-independence absolute majority in the Catalan Parliament.
Although the independence movement has started other political years with important disagreements between the parties, this year is on the way to beating them all. To the uncertainty with respect to the Catalan National Day on 11th September are added the disagreements on the road map to independence and the different criteria for the institutional response to the Supreme Court sentences. President Torra has shown his hand and now we need to learn what his team is to carry his plan out.