Cordiality and good manners presided over the meeting between José Montilla and Artur Mas in La Vanguardia. Smiles, some complicity, and no reproaches.
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They are politicians from before the current political polarization. Not surprisingly, as they themselves reminded, despite their differences, they were able to reach agreements on relevant issues.
Cordiality and good manners between two politicians from before polarization
For example, the still current Catalonia Education Law of 2009, with the first occupying the presidency of the Generalitat and the second as leader of the opposition. Mas explained this, who could not help but recall that he held that position “despite having won the elections.” Fairly speaking, it must be said that he himself acknowledged that there was nothing illegitimate about the socialist ending up as president instead of him.
Despite this, political differences surfaced in almost all the topics discussed during their conversation. In practically all topics. With regional financing: pragmatic Montilla; maximalist Mas. Education: critical of the Administration, the sovereigntist; supporter of shifting responsibility onto society as a whole, the socialist. And especially, in the most directly political and most current issue, the rise of far-right political forces. With the recent example of the elections in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt and the overwhelming victory of the AfD.
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Should proto-fascist forces be isolated by maintaining a sanitary cordon – or as they say in Germany Brandmauer, firewall – that rules out government agreements with them? An issue that immediately projects onto the Spanish political reality, Vox and Catalan, Aliança Catalana of Sílvia Orriols.
Although both agreed that the electoral strength of these formations implies the existence of real underlying problems, they also diverged here. Montilla defended the unbroken continuity of the firewall, in line with what his party advocates, although certainly their results are not encouraging, as indicated by polls and confirmed by electoral results in various countries in Europe and the world.
On that failed line of defense, Mas built his arguments in favor of talking and, if possible, making agreements in some cases. Although, in this case, it is also worth recalling that the alternative was already applied in 1933 by a German politician named Franz von Papen, making Hitler chancellor, and the result was not especially good.
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