When, in the spring of 2007, about a thousand businesspeople and professionals from various disciplines gathered at the IESE business school to claim better treatment from the Spanish government for Catalan infrastructures and, especially, the conversion of the El Prat airport into a major hub with international routes, there were still three years before the court ruling on the Catalan Statute of Autonomy and five years before the start of the great independence mobilizations. The Socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was in the Moncloa palace in Madrid and José Montilla of the PSC in Catalonia's Generalitat, governing with ERC and Iniciativa per Catalunya. The event caught the Catalan government off-guard, and was understood as a disauthorization of the tripartite executive, which was simply not working. Pedro Nueno, Andreu Mas-Colell and Germà Bel were the speakers in charge of expressing the discomfort of a Catalan civil society which was timid and cowardly, but could still carry out acts like that one without any political consequences.
Although it was important at the time, it was still a mild protest from an audience full of suits-and-ties, who, seen with today's eyes, still believed they had a role to play in the future of a country that ran the risk of falling into irrelevance due to the economic asphyxiation by Madrid. I repeat: the independence process had not started, nor was it expected, but the discomfort towards Madrid was rapidly building. Explaining this episode is necessary in order to understand certain aspects of the Spanish state's permanent mistreatment of the infrastructures of Catalonia. In the Spanish government, the groundwork had been laid for what would, in the future, be two lines of action: the nation was being destabilized by means of the Catalan language, and the economic straitjacket would prevent Catalonia from developing all its potential, which, well aligned, had an important magnitude.
Then came the ruling of the Statute, the failure of the fiscal pact - the intermediate way of having the financial autonomy that the Basques have - and the independence process began with the results that we all know very well. Catalonia demonstrated what it wanted to be and the state took off its mask and exposed the unpleasant and violent face behind. It crushed the movement, dismantled the parties, decapitated the leaderships and it did something even worse: it set alight the flame of division, which was very easy to do, as Catalonia moved in some respects into the background. The independence movement was left without a compass and has not yet found one again. But the defenders of the third way, that third way that was halted in the Moncloa and the Zarzuela, were tossed aside like a Kleenex, since they never understood that in Madrid there is no room for a third way, when they are very comfortable driving down the main route on their own.
It was a lesson that Josep Tarradellas had already learned when he explained how easily Madrid, with its permanent pats on the back, moderated Catalan claims. Twenty years later, Jordi Pujol would talk about the patronising "here, chick, chick, chick" approach, comparing the politics of bosses and sinecures, with the crumbs which Madrid has always offered Catalonia. That civil society in 2007 had more momentum than the current one, which is dismantled and frightened, afraid of a judge or a tax inspection. In the face of a huge offensive on a major issue such as infrastructure, silence. Or something else that is the same, a statement or a press release. Of course, preceded by the verb "demand." Another expression that will have to disappear from public language will be that of "protecting" (that is, of a competency held by Catalonia). These are bad times, of course. Very bad times. Politics needs a U-turn, truly. But the old bourgeoisie and the business bosses have erased themselves from the solution. It is not the time to bother Madrid.