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Catalonia, the Majestic and Loyalty

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Catalonia, the Majestic and Loyalty CATALONIA, THE MAJESTIC AND LOYALTY The Majestic is a magnificent hotel in Barcelona which, since May 1996, owes its popularity, on top of its quality, to a political pact. Actually, what was held there was not really a pact, but a dinner which sealed a long and complicated negotiation. The Popular Party had won the general elections, but did not have a sufficient majority to rule and Convergence and Union (CiU) had expressed its willingness to support a government of the Popular Party. The first Government of the Popular Party. The goal was to agree on the terms under which CiU would provide such support and which could also be accepted by the PP. The Majestic, both the hotel and the political pact, has acquired a third meaning, given by some lines of reasoning – rather clumsy actually – that have turned it into an episode that, in the best of cases, should be forgotten or in a sort of precursor of all the evils that Catalan independence has brought to us. Like any political decision, this agreement is open to critical consideration. I am well aware, as I was then, that this pact touched a particularly sensitive area of the PP, its relationship with Catalan nationalism, precisely when the Popular Party had to begin its government. But, before rational criticism and, with more reason, before the disqualifications moved by argumentative gregariousness, animosity, or mere opportunism, precisely today when they want to sell chaos to the Catalans under the wrapper of independence, I claim that agreement, as I did then. This agreement was very good for the whole of Spain and for Catalonia. It enabled a Government under which our country settled its recovery, growth and employment, acquiring credibility and international projection, faced terrorism with an unprecedented social mobilization and managed to enter the euro as a founding member, arriving in time, for the first time in decades, to a major historic event. The Government of the Popular Party was always able to decide and do what it thought was necessary. The pact did not create privileges; the vast majority of the contents agreed – and no doubt the most important ones – had a general application. The deal not only sustained a stable government, and at the same time active, but represented an agreement effort that followed the best line of the constitutional spirit, to make possible what was then claimed by the interests of Spain, which in the spring of 1996 was indeed much. At that time, Catalanism kept away from maximalist claims and showed how the vocation to take part in Spanish politics, which it bore as one of its definition signs, could be done through reasonable channels, without necessarily needing the left and without raising Catalonia's interests as a zero-sum game before those of the rest of Spain. The agreement did not grant Catalonia any exclusive tax benefit. It settled ‘the launch of a new model of regional financing for the next five years 1997-2001,’ within which the signatories committed themselves to ‘grant to the Autonomous Communities – and I specify, all of them – a share in the Income Tax corresponding to the residents in their respective territories of 30 per cent, to be set according to their powers and volume of resources’. With regard to Health, the PP accepted ‘the commitments of the previous term regarding the 1994 health financing of the Communities which had been transferred this power’ and stated that the Government of Catalonia was entitled to 15.99 per cent. We agreed to develop the police model ‘on the basis of the resolutions adopted on the previous term by the Board on Security’ and we expressed a ‘political will to advance the study and negotiation’ so that the regional police could assume the powers of traffic management, as it did. This was a power already held by Navarra's regional police and the Ertzaintza in the Basque Country. The pact was a successful choice of the Popular Party. Of all the Popular Party. I had with me a committed and competent negotiating team, with a very clear understanding of the demands of the time. To any sceptical readers, I will clarify that precisely one of the key persons in this agreement was Mariano Rajoy, something he has never hidden. On several occasions during the previous term, in very different circumstances of course, he spoke of a possible ‘Majestic II’ and in his autobiography, published in 2011 (‘En confianza,’ Planeta), he explains it well: ‘The aim of the negotiations was very clear to us. We had to reach an agreement for four years with light and stenographers; a pact that would be a public commitment for the whole term of office, with transparency and clarity and a monitoring and enforcement mechanism . The image of that agreement under which CiU would support the PP government, in which I had a very active role leading a great part of the negotiation and reaching common understandings, is the photography of the dinner at the Majestic Hotel in Barcelona. That is why it was baptized as ‘the pact of the Majestic’. As a result of this we managed to make one of the most brilliant periods in the recent history of contemporary Spain.’ The pact earned the support of the majority of Spain, which became overwhelming in the case of the Catalans, regardless of their party. Voters of Catalonia's Popular Party expressed a support of 76.1 per cent (CIS, study 2215, May 1996). This involved a remarkable electoral growth in the medium and long term for the Popular Party of Catalonia, which increased from 8 to 12 seats in the general elections of 2000 (and which were very significantly recovered in the regional elections of 2003) and, far from strengthening nationalism, it resulted in a significant political and social decline of it, the current state of which has a much later origin. I would like to remind the readers that between 1996 and 2003 the sum of CiU and ERC decreased in votes and seats in the regional and general elections. In the regional elections, from 1,625,000 to 1,568,000 votes, from 73 to 69 seats, and from 50.4 per cent of the valid vote to 47.3 per cent. In the general ones, from 1,314,000 in 1996 to 1,160,000 in 2000, from 17 to 16 seats, and from 25.7 percent of the vote on census to 21.9. Moreover, the average scale of Catalan nationalism developed by the CIS (1 = minimum degree of nationalism; 10 = maximum degree of nationalism) decreased during those years of PP government, from 5.72 in 1995 to 5.42 in 2003; the last record, from November 2012, set it at 5.9. Those who declare a maximum degree of Catalan nationalism (9- 10) have increased from 10.2 in November 2003 (minimum value of the whole historical series of the CIS, initiated in 1991) to 24.7 in November 2012. As one should distinguish between voices and echoes, we must look at the accusing fingers pointing at the Majestic, because many of them hitherto kept indoctrinating us about the evils of absolute majorities and the benefits of ‘the culture of the covenant’. Not to mention all those who suddenly exhibit a marvellous retrospective clairvoyance with which they can make out the past but that is not enough to remember where they were or what they wrote on this agreement nearly 20 years ago. I think there is much inconsistency and myopia in these reactions that ultimately exonerate the nationalists of their responsibilities and are instead transferred to those who are labelled as either submissive or immobilist, according to the summons of the arguments of the day or their convenience in difficult times. And that is indeed a question of loyalty. To truth, of course. José María Aznar Former Prime Minister 1 .
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