The Catalonia Operation commission hears today from Sáenz de Santamaría and Artur Mas

The Congressional commission of inquiry into the so-called Operation Catalunya, in which former Vice President Soraya Sáenz de Santamaria and former President of the Generalitat Artur Mas will appear today, has been in operation for over a year.

After six months of hearings, there's no sign of any conclusion being reached anytime soon. In fact, parliamentary sources believe it could drag on for the remainder of the legislative session.

The reasons are multiple. On the one hand, Junts—the driving force behind the commission following the investiture agreement with the PSOE—continues to expand its requests for appearances and new documentation, supported by other parties. And the Socialists, who initially accepted the commission as a bargaining chip for Pedro Sánchez's investiture, know it's a good tool to inflame the Popular Party.

The commission is, in practice, another battleground in current politics. The Popular Party uses its question time to accuse the Socialists of corruption, while Podemos uses it to question illegal investigations into Pablo Iglesias's party.

However, some parliamentary sources maintain that, despite the hubbub, the committee is now establishing in clear text that there was indeed a political order to investigate Catalan leaders.

Junts representatives wanted to include judges and prosecutors on the lists of those appearing at the start of these sessions, in an attempt to demonstrate the infamous "lawfare" (the dirty war between the judiciary) but the PSOE and the government firmly blocked that avenue.

The truth is that, as far as justice is concerned, the commission is having no influence, either positive or negative. The ongoing cases, for example against the Pujol family or the 3% case, continue their course regardless of what's happening in Congress, where some members of Congress are more concerned with sneaking in a question that fits into the brevity of social media or the seconds devoted to television than with getting to the heart of the matter.

Commission sources explain that there won't be enough time to complete the scheduled appearances this year. Once the currently scheduled appearances are completed, the ones related to the use of the Pegasus spyware will begin, following the decision to include the investigation into this matter within this commission. Once these are completed, new appearances may be requested.

The commission's formal objective is to determine whether, during the government led by Mariano Rajoy, and specifically by the Ministry of the Interior headed by Jorge Fernández-Díaz, paramilitary operations were orchestrated against pro-independence leaders starting in 2012.

Parliamentary sources believe that the inclusion of espionage with Pegasus will lengthen the commission.

Key members of that government have appeared on the commission, including Rajoy himself ; the party's then-secretary general, María Dolores de Cospedal; Fernández Díaz; his deputy in the ministry, Francisco Martínez; former finance minister Cristóbal Montoro; and former president of the Catalan People's Party (PP), Alicia Sánchez Camacho.

All of them, without exception, have denied that there was a political order to investigate and harm Catalan politicians or businessmen and pressure them to stop the independence movement.

According to their testimony, it's all a fabrication. Whose? There's a name for all of them: former Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo, who has acknowledged that Operation Catalunya was designed within the Rajoy administration. He even claimed to have spoken about it with the then president. Rajoy denies it.

Parliamentary sources explain that the problem with Villarejo's statements is that he has lost all credibility because he is "his own enemy," telling truths, lies, half-truths, and half-lies, making it impossible to discern when he is telling the truth and when he is lying.

Villarejo has even served as an opportunity for some of his interlocutors to deny the existing recordings with the commissioner, which have come to light.

The latest example was María Dolores de Cospedal, who in the commission simply stated that she did not recognize audio recordings in which she speaks with Villarejo and which hinted at the existence of operations against Catalan leaders.

Rajoy, Cospedal, Fernández Díaz, Montoro and Sánchez Camacho have already appeared for the investigation.

Another retired commissioner, Marcelino Martín Blas, acknowledged that there was a police operation in Catalonia, although he wanted to disassociate himself from it by pointing the finger at Villarejo and the police leadership then led by Eugenio Pino.

However, legal sources warn that this police commander is being prosecuted for another paramilitary operation, known as Operation Kitchen, so some of his statements should be taken with extreme caution.

However, this version of events, as described by Martín Blas, has prompted the parties most interested in this commission to demand new documentation and more appearances.

Today it will be the turn of Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría and Artur Mas.

The Vice President's Silence

It may be interesting to hear former Vice President of the Government, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaria, speak at the committee today. Although she may choose a discreet defensive stance, the truth is that she has never, or almost never, publicly addressed her version of what happened in those years. In 2019, La Vanguardia published audio recordings of José Manuel Villarejo in which he stated that Cospedal and Sáenz de Santamaría were at odds over their stance on Catalonia. In one conversation, the former police officer claimed that the then Vice President of the Government, whom he repeatedly calls "the little one," blamed her colleague in the executive branch for making things worse in Catalonia by mounting that paramilitary operation. Sáenz de Santamaría was the one who held a conversation with Oriol Junqueras in 2017 to try to stop the independence process. After the vote of no confidence against Rajoy, he left politics.