After the announcement of the judgment of the Procés trial and the new mobilizations against the decision, people ask themselves: where is the European Union at the moment? I already tell you, dear readers, that the European Union will neither appear nor should be expected. I fear that nobody in Europe will come to the rescue. Perhaps, one of the great strategic mistakes of Procés has been the lack of understanding of the crucial role of geopolitics and the international factor in the configuration of a process that has been read in a myopic way in a national, but not international, way. This is largely due to the fact that Procés has been coaxed by some smoke vendors made in the USA who have contributed to the "marketization" and internationalization of a political conflict that, despite having apparently amassed certain media support from the great international media and various politicians of the European Union, has not been able to strengthen solid and concrete political help. How then should we explain such a paradox?
Historically, Procés has conceived the national problem as a conflict between a nation without a State and a repressive state of imperial tradition within the "sealed" framework of an economically backward state in southern Europe. "Spain is irreformable," some point with the intention of sowing a portrait of a black Spain where the evocation of the class struggle seems almost a privilege that only Procés can hegemonize. This pessimistic, essentialist and ahistorical vision of Spain has motivated Procés to focus on the internationalization of the conflict, and not on the compression of the international and geopolitical factor that conditions it, with the hope of finding international support – especially that of the European Union— that can facilitate a political and democratic solution to the problem. As a consequence of this need, Procés has imagined a vision of the European Union mitigated and sweetened, representing it as well as the modern antithesis of everything that symbolizes the Spanish State. However, given the recent tragic events, it has already been shown that the modern and democratic European Union does not seem bothered by what happened in Spain and the independence movement still does not understand why.
Perhaps Procés should have understood that the development of the conflict has not occurred in a “sealed” state environment, but rather in an international context where Spain and Catalonia are part of the periphery of a quasi-imperial formation in a state of decomposition where they exist Asymmetric political and economic relations between the center and the periphery. The European Union, like the former empires, is carrying out a “border policy” on its periphery: that is, violence and excesses of local elites are allowed and ignored, as they contribute to cohesion and survival of the asymmetric relations between the imperial center and the periphery, which, in turn, facilitate the reproduction of government elites – also of the Catalan ones – and of capital.
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On the other hand, Procés has confused the Spanish State agency to discipline its people with an illusory full political agency. In fact, the Spanish State has long since lost its independence and international agency. It has been at the mercy of foreign powers and supranational organizations that have directed their national and international policy. The privilege of developing disciplinary policies within the state framework is perhaps the only and last political element that is allowed to those States that are on the edge of the periphery and border of the European "empire." This mirage has been misinterpreted by independence. He has not understood that the illiberal tendencies of the states of the periphery of the European Union can coexist perfectly with the liberal guidelines of the imperial center. In fact, both dynamics feedback dialectically, thus crushing any attempt to build a democratic social fabric. Has the European Union done anything to prevent authoritarian drift from states like Poland or Hungary? In a serious and democratic European Union these events should be penalized, not ignored.
Procés would do well to understand that the creation of a “Finland” in southern Europe is not possible in the current context of capitalist geopolitical competition and global economic restructuring. The "border policy" that the European Union is exercising on Hispanic peoples is hardening more and more. This is just a snack of what is to come. The possibility of creating a federal and democratic Spain goes through the previous understanding of the position we occupy within the framework of the European Union and global capitalism. We have long forgotten. Blame the brutal geopolitical dynamics of the European Union and the tendencies of an uncontrolled and transition capitalism. We are on the border of the European Union and that, unfortunately, has consequences for its people.
