In this century alone, four presidents of Catalonia have attempted processes of agreement with Spain in order to improve the status quo in Catalonia and provide a response to the so-called Catalan conflict. They have even done so with large majorities in Parliament - in some cases, greater than two-thirds of Catalonia's legislative chamber, as was the case of president Pasqual Maragall. In no case has the Spanish state's response been affirmative, for one reason or another, and the closest that it has come to a point of understanding was the draft Catalan Statute of Autonomy approved by the Parliament of Catalonia in September 2005. After that would come, as is well known, an authentic Via Crucis: the text was conveniently cut down to size in Spain's Congress of Deputies, but also passed in the lower house in March 2006; later, it was approved in a referendum by the citizens of Catalonia in June of that same year; and finally, in June 2010, the Constitutional Court dealt it a death blow with a disproportionate and unjust resolution that, in the end, was the first image of the legacy left by the Aznarist attitude of definitively closing the debate on the future of the autonomous communities.
Since memory is fragile, it is worth remembering that that legislative text was approved by 120 of the 135 Catalan deputies, an absolute majority which, it is not superfluous to say, nevertheless did not even raise a ripple in the state. There was more power behind the fifteen opposed parliamentarians from the Popular Party, then headed by the recently deceased Josep Piqué. And this is a detail which helps to locate the exact coordinates of the debate that there is now an intention of opening, two decades later, from president Pere Aragonès: a Clarity Agreement which in Catalonia only has the support of the 33 deputies of the Catalan Republican Left and in Madrid does not have support of any of the major political forces. It can be argued that majorities are always volatile and that those who are against it today may be in favour of it tomorrow. Experience, however, shows that this is not the most usual path, and indeed, precisely the reverse usually applies: those who start the journey in favour gradually abandon the quest as they observe the problems that their political position causes them. There's no need to embarrass anyone over this, but the newspaper archives are there to be reviewed, not to pretend that they don't exist.
Two other presidents tried, like Maragall, to find a way to reach agreement with Madrid to respond to the permanent demand for more autonomy on the part of Catalan society. It was from there that there arose the process initiated by Artur Mas in 2012 and which would initially take shape in the non-binding consultation or participative process of November 9th, 2014, which had clear majority support in Parliament. Despite not being binding, the state's reaction was blunt and the chief public prosecutor lodged complaints for disobedience, abuse of authority, misuse of public funds and usurpation of functions against president Mas, vice president Joana Ortega and the education minister Irene Rigau. Later, the minister for the presidency, Francesc Homs, would be added. All of them would endure a judicial and economic punishment that was intended to be an exemplary lesson for the incipient independence movement.
The next move by a president of the Generalitat was that of Carles Puigdemont beginning in the summer of 2017, trying to agree on an independence referendum with the Spanish state without succeeding. The Catalan Parliament then validated a question and a date, that of October 1st, also doing so by an absolute majority. The final result is well known, but both in this case and in the other two cases, those of the Statute and the 2014 consultation, the process was launched with a broad consensus in Catalonia. This is not the case with the Clarity Agreement, which is born on the breathing tube. Nor is it a mid-point between pro-independence and non-independence. Among the former, both Together for Catalonia and the CUP have stepped away from the proposal and, among the latter, no one has embraced the idea, but rather, all have refused to open a debate which they have already warned that they oppose radically.
I guess it's easier - cheaper, I'm sure - to replace the failed dialogue table with the Clarity Agreement than to announce a new package of major investments to alleviate the drought, which was what was expected in the return from the Easter break. Also announcements about the essential and urgent need for policies of water reuse, to promote its regeneration. But that is something we know very little about.