The decision of Spain's Court of Accounts to refuse any time extension to enable the thirty pro-independence leaders to formalize the bond of 5.4 million euros they must deposit for the costs of the Catalan government's foreign action between 2011 and 2017 shows the extent to which the objective is none other than to ruin those involved by means of a completely inexplicable ferocity and cruelty. A month's extension was asked for and not even an hour has been given beyond midnight this Wednesday 21st.
This is what happens when the goal is not what it should be, to recover the allegedly misused money, but rather, to teach a lesson that serves as guidance for the whole of the Catalan independence movement. The deep state is hard at work in an extreme-right body which it dominates and controls. It is also moving its tentacles so that the Catalan government decree to create a complementary risk fund worth ten million euros as proposed by the minister for the economy, Jaume Giró, for situations like that posed by the Court of Accounts, faces the greatest possible obstacles.
It is already known that a subtle hint from the Bank of Spain is more than enough for financial institutions to drag their heels and flee in the face of any complications they might have. Especially if the names that would benefit are those of Carles Puigdemont, Artur Mas, Oriol Junqueras, Andreu Mas-Colell, Francesc Homs, Raül Romeva, and so on, down the list of senior government officials from that six year period.
And, on the other hand, making a deal with an international bank for such a financial operation needs more time. Apparently it is simple, since the amount of ten million euros established by the Catalan government's decree law is not high at all. For this reason, it is very surprising that Spanish financial institutions have not stepped in as the Catalan government's counter-guarantee - for the amount is secure.
Over the next 48 hours, the fate is to be decided of a handful of public servants who did not misuse public funds or do anything of the sort. The independence movement's resistance fund has raised around one million euros, a significant amount but certainly not enough. The match is not yet over, although time is running out. It is striking how the Spanish government, supposedly left-wing, looks the other way, when it also knows the goings-on that take place at the Court of Accounts - today obsessed with the Catalan independence movement, but tomorrow, who knows?
Before being sacked by Pedro Sánchez, former Socialist government minister Ábalos described this case before the Court of Accounts as putting rocks in the path of dialogue. Ábalos is no longer there, and today there is a territorial policy minister, Isabel Rodríguez, former mayor of Puertollano and a confidant of the Castilla-La Mancha president Emiliano García-Page, who requests that the independence referendum issue should be put aside and, with a a certain air of condescension, points out that the independence movement "should have learned its lesson" on these matters. Good grief!