Pedro Sánchez's government has been officially campaigning since last Friday, when the prime minister announced the holding of a general election for 28th April, and someone must have thought that, while they're at it and in their work clothes, the way to really profit from calling people to the ballot boxes is by opening fire against the Catalan government. Said and done: the Spanish interior ministry has had the notion of leaving president Quim Torra without an escort during his trip to Brussels this Monday. Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska has said the same thing will happen to Catalan ministers when they travel abroad. Playing dirty? Of course it is.
The news is shocking, as if Quim Torra has always been able to travel with his bodyguards before, what's changed so he can't now? Only two things: the no to the proposed Spanish budget and the calling of the snap election. Neither of the two options seem to be convincing reasons to apply such a measure. But Sánchez needs to to distinguish himself, even if it is with a measure that not even Mariano Rajoy applied during his years in the Moncloa government palace. Nor do I remember that Pasqual Maragall, José Montilla or Artur Mas had, as presidents of Catalonia, such a problem. It was the case, however, for Jordi Pujol at various times during his 23 years as president. At that time, the presidency department thought up all manner of ruses to deal with the intermittent bad relationships with Felipe González in the Moncloa. From the bodyguards travelling by car and waiting at the president's destination with their weapons to, using the room for officials and a private plane, dodging the ban. What's certain is that you'd have fingers left on one hand counting the times bodyguards didn't carry their regulation weapons.
But Sánchez is campaigning and urgently needs to pick up from his poor results in the last election, when he achieved seven deputies in Catalonia, far from the 25 gained in 2008 by the late Carme Chacón. A stratospheric result, unthinkable today since the number of seats in Congress to share out in Catalonia is 47. Although the independence movement isn't going to be PSOE's main adversary in Catalonia, it's a godsend for it to not appear weak in the rest of Spain. For that reason, foreign minister Borrell has carte blanche for his fancies to counter the pro-independence narrative in the international media. PSOE is going for throwing institutional spanners in the works like Marlaska has done more than for open confrontation.
Above all because in a strategy of confrontation with the right and spreading to the four winds the arrival of the far right, it trusts it will earn tactical votes from part of the independence movement scared by this political panorama. It remains curious: with one hand applying article 155 just 15 months ago and spending its time in the Moncloa preaching dialogue which at its heart was papier-maché and, with the other, planning a pre-campaign to go fishing in the choppy waters of pro-independence votes. It seems difficult but more difficult things have been seen in politics.