The decision of the Pere Aragonès government to incorporate Pere Macias with full authority into the negotiation process for the transfer of the Rodalies rail services to the Catalan government and to name him as commissioner - thus making him responsible, along with the Spanish minister of transport and sustainable mobility, Óscar Puente, for leading the transfer of this infrastructure to Catalonia - is an inspired start in the quest to reach the desired destination. Macias has a wealth of experience in the infrastructures area and was already Catalan minister of territorial policy between 1997 and 2001. At 67 years old, he has held almost all the political positions he could aspire to, from the mayoralty of Olot and the aforementioned ministerial post to MP and senatorial roles for more than ten years.
Macias is a rare beast in the world of Catalan politics, since his education as a civil engineer and his vision, always more professional than partisan, allowed him to occupy all possible positions when he was a member of Convergència (CDC), and later, with the disappearance of that party, he maintained his status as an independent. This aura of being able to get to the nub of any situation, former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau entrusted him in 2016 with the strategic direction of the project to join up the two tramways along the Diagonal. Since 2018, he has been coordinator for Rodalies in Catalonia, appointed, in this case, by a Socialist government. The cycle is now completed with his appointment by an ERC government.
There will be no shortage of work for Macias. Until Thursday evening, rail staff were on the verge of their first stoppage day, planned for Friday, in the strike called by Renfe and Adif works committees against the transfer of Rodalies to Catalonia - before it was called off at the last moment. It was, without a doubt, a political strike: the workers' protest could not be labeled in any other way, since their jobs are to be preserved, and the transfer is, as of now, a political agreement between the PSOE and the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) to facilitate the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. We are, therefore, not only very far from the end, but far from the beginning.
In the midst of strong opposition from different political, judicial, media and economic sectors, positioning themselves against the amnesty law and, in short, against a situation of normalcy for the new Spanish legislature, and in favour of generating the maximum possible instability, the movement of the Adif and Renfe works committees was on the same wavelength. That it was a strange strike to be called was shown by the fact that none of the workers' rights are at stake, no matter how many lies they tried to spread. There is a kind of underlying Catalanophobia that always arises when it comes to transfering resources to the Generalitat which is nothing more than a reflection of how things have evolved in Spain in recent decades. With this attitude, no transfer would have been possible from 1978 onwards, which was when Catalan autonomy began to be given some substantive content - more than just financial resources.
Pere Macias can thus roll up his sleeves. He will need a lot more than political complicity and his usual dexterity to steer this convoy through to its terminus.