The Barons' Rebellion

The Conference of Presidents is described in a bombastic manner. It is the highest-level body of cooperation between the central government and the governments of the seventeen autonomous regions and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. But the extent of collaboration remains to be seen. It is feared and expected, in equal measure, that the meeting to be held today in Barcelona under the presidency of King Felipe VI will add fuel to the already well-stoked fire of tension and polarization.

It shouldn't be this way, as this is a meeting point between those who direct the destiny of the nation of all and those who lead the small homelands of a country that is rightfully proud of its diversity. The plurality of identity traits need not be at odds with the creation of harmony among them all. The appropriate metaphor is that of instruments that jointly rehearse a symphony.

However, a lack of understanding is guaranteed when the Nation , in the words of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero , is a "debatable and contested" concept. Under the previous Socialist Prime Minister and current tireless champion of Sanchismo, the national orchestra began to fall out of tune. And thus, the barons' rebellion is born.

Zapatero was the one who came up with the idea for a Conference of Presidents and announced it in 2004 during the debate of his first investiture as Prime Minister. He only held one five years later, and Mariano Rajoy, who did not seem enthusiastic about the initiative, chaired two between 2012 and 2017. The meeting may have had its purpose during the pandemic, when Pedro Sánchez held, via videoconference, up to fourteen sessions between May and July 2020. But the fact is that so far, the meeting has neither excited the staff nor worried the convening government.

Until now, because these days, far from taking advantage of the opportunity the Conference provides to pause and engage in the always necessary reflection on where we've come from, where we are, and where we're going, the fractured political elites are entertaining themselves with a veritable bonfire of vanities.

The disagreement between what Sanchismo is and isn't is certain because of the difference in the interpretation of Title VIII of the 1978 Constitution, which is the chapter that deals with the territorial organization of the State. What for some is the roadmap for markedly decentralized public administrations , in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, is for others the embryo of that plurinational state so beloved by the left.

A lack of understanding is inevitable when one of the parties called upon to seek agreements doesn't trust the other. This is the case with today's meeting. The overwhelming majority of those who preside over the regional governments are members of the Popular Party , and none of them trust the Socialist leader who, as the Spanish government, presides over them all.

They don't trust Pedro Sánchez because he is a hostage to those who reject the "indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation, the common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards" established in Article 2 of the Preliminary Title of the Magna Carta. The caustic paradox hovering over these parts between Hendaye and Gibraltar is that a handful of anti-Spain factions maintain the government of all Spaniards in power. It's a circumstance that belongs to the theater of the absurd.

The regional leaders who will meet at the Pedralbes Palace in Barcelona believe the progressive, minority coalition government is showing clear signs of disintegration. And they don't believe in the slightest that Sánchez is in a position to ensure "an adequate and fair economic balance between the various parts of the Spanish territory." Nor is he in a position to prevent, as Title VIII of the Constitution also stipulates, an Autonomous Community from obtaining economic or social privileges.

Things change

The Conference of Presidents , which lacks regular periodicity and a dynamic structure of its own, has so far been held without much fanfare amid general indifference, but this time the outcome could be very different. Things change when the reputation of the government that convened it is in free fall and when the meeting is held precisely in the place where the ambitions of those disaffected with the unitary state are growing.

The multilateral meeting coincides with new images of that national sport, clubbing . The fight becomes epic, and the embarrassment total, when a man implicated in major judicial corruption investigations faces off against a no less idolized plumber from the ruling party who has become a sought-after celebrity overnight.

Surely, until the Berlanga-esque "everyone to jail" moment arrives, more grotesque spectacles are still waiting to be premiered. In Madrid, the breakwater of all Spains, the mud is fetid. There has always been tawdriness, and now it will be said that there is even more. In the public's perception, the Sanchismo that promised mani pulite is on its way to breaking records of accumulated filth. Cynical and haughty deception is one of the most difficult sins to forgive.

The Prime Minister's reputation is sinking at a critical moment when he must challenge Catalan sovereignty, because the Popular Party barons will demand it. It is a sovereignty to which Sánchez himself has given wings so that, in return, he can remain in power. The very complex staging of the relationship with Catalonia is in full revival. The emotional turmoil once again dominates the conversation, with added obstacles.

Bartering is a behavior embedded in the culture of every politician, and because of the "it's me today, it's your tomorrow" principle, people tend to turn a blind eye to the tricks it entails. It's practiced in small homelands just as it is in everyone's. But Sánchez, who lost the general elections in the summer of 2023, has gone too far with his deceitful bartering.

The balance

The common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards is not being trifled with. Nor is the proper economic balance between the various parts of the Spanish territory being neutralized. The eleven regional barons of the Popular Party are very clear about this. They are also clear that co-existence, the policy Sánchez pursues because it ensures his permanence in power, today requires putting up with the impunity of the republican rebels of Catalan self-determination. And in the meantime, shouldering the generous funding that the rebels demand in order to achieve their long-awaited insurrection.

Any examination of the appeasement strategy shows that any attempt to contain with palliatives what one seeks to avoid, and any attempt to tame with sugarcoating tactics what persistently threatens, is counterproductive. He who feeds the crocodile with his hand ends up losing his arm. Impunity, indeed the self-amnesty granted to the pro-independence coup plotters with Sánchez's approval, will not serve to appease the independence movement. On the contrary, it will only encourage it.

At the same time, those in power in decentralized Spain are very clear that a "Catalan quota," a "unique" form of financing that is biased because it was drafted and formalized by the pro-independence forces and includes the forgiveness of Catalonia's accumulated debt, seriously harms the autonomous regions of the general regime.

The meeting in Barcelona worries the government because it knows exactly what awaits it. Given the territorial superiority of the Popular Party, the meeting's agenda was, for the first time, set by the opposition rather than the government. And the Popular Party barons wereted no time in announcing that they were going to "tell Sánchez the truth." They have rebelled.

What is said at the Pedralbes Palace will be repeated in the form of chants on Sunday at the rally in Madrid's Plaza de España called by the Popular Party. The main opposition party seems to have awakened from a stunned slumber. Many will say it's about time. It uses the "homelands" (nationalities), and these constitute a good starting point for mobilizing and advancing, for repealing and building. And what else could the Prime Minister expect?