The fireworks between the Catalan pro-independence parties and the Spanish and Catalan Socialists in the last few hours, with each of the two sides marking its own profile and evidencing a distance that really exists, in the time before the second vote of Alberto Núñez Feijóo's failed investiture, results fundamentally from the need to communicate to their own respective parishes that here, no one has given an inch on their initial positions. And the fact is that politics, like it or not, has a lot of this, especially at times when the facts which people really need to talk about are being kept secret among a few people who seek to keep the conversations open, move forward and, if an agreement is produced, make it secure, momentous and able to last for four years.
What has to be avoided is a situation where, as the saying goes, those involved can't see the wood for the trees. In other words, one must step back from the particularities to see the forest as a whole in all its magnitude, and thus understand the context and the real needs of each individual. It is a truth that is universal but especially applicable to the world of politics, where, as we have seen, all parties involved in the investiture of Pedro Sánchez have taken pot-shots from their respective trenches - yet they have been shooting blanks. An ammunition that allows triggers to be pulled and cartridges to detonate without any risk of impact due to the absence of an actual projectile. Of course, they also generate noise and a flash when fired.
There were three agreements or announcements made this Thursday. The Catalan Republican Left (ERC), Together for Catalonia (Junts) and the Popular Unity Candidature (CUP) began by presenting a joint resolution on the amnesty, to be voted on this Friday in Parliament. In it they leave the political agreement in the hands of the parliamentary groups in Madrid and place the government and the Catalan institutions in the role of joining the collective effort for the passing of the law and the proactive monitoring of its application immediately after approval. The second resolution refers to the subject of the referendum, with the CUP already having withdrawn, and ERC and Junts appear as the only signatories. The key paragraph of the resolution is particularly well considered, as is its ambiguity: "The Catalan Parliament declares that the Catalan political forces with representation in the Spanish [Congress] should not support an investiture of a future Spanish government that does not commit itself to work to make effective the conditions for the holding of the referendum"
Ultimately, what is being asked of Sánchez is that he undertakes to take steps, something very far from saying that without a referendum there will be no investiture. Is it a hurdle for the PSOE? Yes, of course. But no one said the investiture would be easy. Does it break up any conversations that might be going on? It does not. And this is because - among other reasons - the margins used in the application of the resolutions of the Catalan Parliament - and of all parliaments, at least in Spain - are usually wide. In the same way that a resolution that is approved, stating that the government does not have the confidence of the chamber does not lead the president to dissolve Parliament. And the fact is that in the fine print of these documents there are usually margins so that, on many occasions, things are not exactly as they might be interpreted on first reading.
The corollary to these two resolutions of the Parliament was a statement late at night from the Spanish and Catalan Socialists - PSOE and PSC - in which they ask ERC and Junts not to deepen the rupture and warn that they will only negotiate within the Constitution. If the earlier resolutions were ambiguous, this 13-line text beats them hands down. After reiterating the commitment to dialogue, it points out that it must be aimed at overcoming division and not exacerbating the fracture and discord that generated so much tension in a sterile way in Catalonia and the rest of Spain. "On this path, no progress is possible." "The path is that of coexistence and cohesion, understanding and the economic and social progress of Catalonia and the rest of Spain, always within the Constitution." The person from the PSOE who drafted the communique dropped the word "unity" and instead inserted "cohesion", which is not exactly the same thing.
In summary, the idea of confrontation sketched out by these three texts has, I think, rather minor importance in the investiture or non-investiture of Pedro Sánchez, and rather, they only have the value of protecting each of the parties ahead of the real thorny issue which they will dive into this coming week. In fact, I would venture to suggest that they neither bring the investiture a little closer, nor take it slightly farther away.