Spain’s Sánchez outfoxes Puigdemont again

PORTBOU, Spain — Carles Puigdemont has escaped again.

The opposition in Spain is fuming about what they say is a show of incompetence from state authorities, who failed to arrest the Catalan separatist leader when he returned to Barcelona on Thursday to speak to a few thousand supporters in a political stunt in front of the Arc de Triomf.

But as is apparent here in Portbou, on the border between Catalonia and France, police have not made very big efforts to catch him after his magic-trick appearance and disappearance.

Everyone from the local police to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in Madrid seems to prefer to continue their holiday break and let Puigdemont go back to rainy Belgium.

Sánchez will indeed be quietly delighted that Puigdemont seems to be far away in Waterloo again, rather than in a Spanish prison cell as a martyr.

The timing of Puigdemont’s surprise trip to Barcelona was sensitive for Sánchez because it risked jeopardizing the all-important election of Salvador Illa, a socialist and close ally of Sánchez, as the new regional president of Catalonia.

Sánchez also still needs the votes of Puigdemont’s Junts party in Madrid if he wants to pass next year’s budget.

Spain’s top unwanted fugitive

Despite the theatrics, Catalonia’s parliament elected Illa as the new president of the Generalitat on Thursday as planned, under a deal between the prime minister’s socialists and the leftist separatist ERC (Catalan Republican Left) party. That deal will give the region of 8 million people — an economic powerhouse larger than Portugal or Finland — independence on fiscal matters, with Madrid no longer collecting taxes on Catalan territory.

“Catalonia wins, Spain moves forward,” Sánchez said in a statement after Illa was inaugurated. He did not mention Puigdemont.

Everyone from the local police to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in Madrid seems to prefer to continue their holiday break and let Puigdemont, center, go back to rainy Belgium. | Cesar Manso/AFP via Getty Images

“It is clear that nobody here had much interest in actively arresting Puigdemont,” said José Ignacio Torreblanca, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Madrid.

“For Sánchez, the important thing was not to jeopardize the investiture of Illa, and the same is true for the ERC in Catalonia. I don’t think anyone was interested in Puigdemont starring the day more than he did with this pathetic escape,” Torreblanca said.

The center-right separatist leader had hoped to become Catalonia’s new president himself, after he negotiated an amnesty law with Sánchez that Puigdemont hoped would allow him to return to Spain without facing arrest after he organized an unconstitutional independence referendum. But the judges are refusing to apply the amnesty fully to Puigdemont, who still faces charges of misuse of public funds.

Political reality

The inauguration of Illa is yet another defeat for the self-exiled Catalan, who has been repeatedly outfoxed by Sánchez.

“Puigdemont made Sánchez Spain’s [prime minister] in exchange for an amnesty that does not apply to him,” said Torreblanca, referring to the crucial seven MPs from Puigdemont’s Junts party that Sánchez needed to become prime minister.

“Now, Puigdemont has also lost the government of the Generalitat. He will have to measure very well if he continues to support Sánchez, because the score is 2-0.”

Opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo said Sánchez was responsible for the “unbearable humiliation” of the Puigdemont escape fiasco. Feijóo called on the prime minister to fire his Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and intelligence chief Margarita Robles.

“Faced with this farce, the government cannot continue on vacation laughing at the Spanish people,” Feijóo said.

But that’s exactly what Sánchez — and Feijóo, for that matter — have done. They have remained on holidays, perhaps in the ultimate sign that Puigdemont has become irrelevant, a summer entertainment with no political impact.

“It is a humiliation for Spain, but at the end of the day,” Torreblanca concluded, “Sánchez is president, Illa is president, and Puigdemont is not. And that, as cynical and harsh as it is, is the reality.”

“Didn’t even try”

In the sleepy border town of Portbou, nestled between the foothills of the Pyrenees and the inscrutably blue Mediterranean Sea, it was evident that police had not been searching for Puigdemont since Friday.

The town has a long history as a crossing point for smugglers and refugees. It was a famous stopover for Spanish Republicans fleeing Francisco Franco’s troops, and soon after, for Jews and intellectuals fleeing Nazi Germany, such as Hannah Arendt, Heinrich Mann and Alma Mahler, who all passed through this town.

German Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin lies buried in Portbou’s cemetery on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean.

Nowadays, only a different shade of black in the road asphalt indicates the former border crossing. The customs buildings have given way to a gas station frequented by French motorists who come here for the cheaper Spanish fuel.

It is not known whether Puigdemont crossed the border here or further inland — the police say they lost track of him in Barcelona.

In the scorching afternoon sun on Saturday, not a single police officer was seen anywhere near the border, no checkpoints or road blocks. Only loud crickets and slumping pine trees were watching this crossing. The offices of the regional and national police were both closed for the weekend with no officers present.

For the locals, it was obvious that no one wanted to find Puigdemont.

Montse, working at the border gas station, said she had been there all day Friday and Saturday and had not seen a single police officer. “I’ve seen them set up checkpoints on other occasions, the Mossos [regional police] and sometimes the Guardia Civil … But these past days they didn’t do that, there was no one,” she said with a shrug.

The chief of the Mossos, Eduard Sallent, said that his goal was to arrest Puigdemont “in the most suitable place” after his speech to supporters in Barcelona on Thursday. But “a mass of people and authorities” prevented him from doing so, he said.

As for Puigdemont’s escape, the Mossos had previously said that border checks were the responsibility of the Guardia Civil, the national gendarmerie.

The Sánchez government, however, decided to put the blame squarely on the Mossos.

“The entire police operation … was the responsibility of the Mossos d’Esquadra,” said Justice Minister Félix Bolaños.

“Now people are saying that it’s an embarrassment for the Mossos because they failed to catch Puigdemont,” said Montse at the border gas station. “But how can they fail if they didn’t even try?”