Javier Lambán (Ejea de los Caballeros, Zaragoza, 1957) speaks with a place and with the freedom of those who respond only before his conscience, the same that will guide him when he has to choose ballot in the next elections. The former president of Aragon lives another life since he ceased to be the leader of the socialists of his land, but keeps political drive intact. To Lambán, who attends La Reason by phone one day after the delivery of the first brick of Social Security to the Basque Country, Spain hurts. And despite continuing to battle against cancer that he diagnosed four years ago, he cares about talking about her.
What do you think of the financing model that the government agreed with Catalonia?
One more constitutional mutation. Josep Borrell, one of the top knowledgeable, has defined it perfectly. He resembles the Basque concert. It aims to take Catalonia fiscally from Spain to the detriment of the rest of the communities that, in the face of the fallacies that are issued from the government, could never opt for a concert of that nature, except Madrid. If we unite that on Tuesday the melon opened that the same thing happens with Social Security, which guarantees equal benefits, I think we are very serious: in the dismantling of the State.
Why do you think the PSOE accepts all this? Do you think there is conviction or see more a political need?
The Socialist Party has never had this type of initiatives in its program or resolutions. Even Europe assumes the law of amnesty, another atrocity, was accepted by Pedro Sánchez to guarantee an investiture. This does not start from any model. They are demands imposed by the independentistas to weekly provide their support for (Sánchez) to continue in the Moncloa Palace.
S intends to walk towards a Confederal Spain formed by Catalonia, the Basque Country and the rest
What do independence partners pursue?
If I hurry, there would be a certain planning not emanating from a previous deliberation, because the PSOE has never discussed that model. This comes to complete something that Maragall and company consisting of eliminating any possibility of alternation from the PP. It is not something predetermined, it could be defined as an electoral construct. What is intended? Walk to a Confederal Spain formed by Catalonia, the Basque Country and the rest of Spain and that these parts come together in a single parliamentary majority project. It seems very serious that you want to mutate the Constitution to achieve it.
Adolfo Suárez already outlined a two -story Spain: three federal statutes for Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia and a wide deconcentration for the rest, although with regions without legislative capacity. Do you see any parallelism?
No, because the size of those leaders with that of the current ones has nothing to do. What happened then is that the Constitution was done in certain circumstances. From there derives another unacceptable fact: that through historical rights, economic concerts were granted to the Basque Country, which are as unfair as we now denounce in Catalonia but are armored by the Constitution. In any case, that was done under that historical fragment of change, of people full of goodwill that were noticed from each other and that made the mistake of not better protecting the Constitution so that the first one that would like to misrepresent it would not come. But now the problem we have is what we have.
Which is it?
That of a country mired in a constitutional and institutional multicrisis, derived from corruption. Not only the economic one, but the purely institutional, because amnesty is nothing other than institutional book corruption. Also a crisis of international discredit and public services. Roads, infrastructure, health, housing and the very serious immigration problem make up our reality. Multicrisis extends and unfortunately has surprised the Spaniards with the weakest government.
In the government there are those who admit that amnesty is an imposition from one half of the country to the other, as has happened with all the constitutions prior to the 78
Ministers can be charged with many things, but none is dumb. They are aware of what they are doing. Sánchez himself is. He knows it is unconstitutional, he said it. And he knows that the story to justify it is false. He has not pacified Catalonia. It has meant an intolerable aggression to coexistence in the rest of the country. And he has not solved problems, he created them. He has raided the path to future attempts of the independentistas.
And what tells me about economic corruption? How has the PSOE acted after the outbreak of the “Cerdán Case”?
The matches tend to see the straw in the eye of others and not the beam in your own. Perhaps in this case we see it to a greater extent. But the PP, with everything about Gürtel and others, had a similar reaction. No government has been exempt from suffering these cases. But what seems unique to me of this time, rather than economic corruption, which is very serious and is not cured with remedies like those announced the other day the president is the constitutional mutation. Change the Constitution to end the state model that we gave ourselves. That is what worries me above all.
Spain approaches 2036, the year in which the centenary of the burst of the civil war will be fulfilled. How will it come?
From here to 36, Spain can adopt two paths. One, with the spirit of 1936, to annihilate above the adversary or with that of 1978, re -valuing above all coexistence. I do not know if the parties will be able to head that great regeneration project. But society, in these circumstances, that despite the fact that the economy – with its peros – works reasonably well, has to be organized. Forums have to be activated to force the parties to do their duties with a view. Civil society cannot stay out. I am worried about passivity, the situation of lack of freedom, the atony that is lived within the Socialist Party. There is no socialist party at this time.
He says there is no socialist party at this time. Will there be when Sánchez is not?
I have doubts that the transition from ‘Sanchismo’ to ‘postsanchismo’ looks like the rest of those lived. It will be very difficult, because in this transit the party has disappeared. Its reaction capacity is void. Sanchismo will want to happen to itself when Sanchez cannot be. And they will be all very serious obstacles to save to recover a classic social democratic party, which is the one that gave good results to Spain, which exists in centrality, which respects liberal democracy, judicial independence, state institutions, which places the redistribution of wealth as one of its basic principles, which respects the entrepreneur …
Former President González is committed to Eduardo Madina. And you?
It seems to me an absolutely useless exercise at this time. At this time, and it already hurts to say it, to think about Sánchez’s successor does not have much foundation.
Is there space for another social democratic party?
This country is governed well on the center-left and the center-right. The only element that has emerged strongly unfortunately is Vox. I do not see easy that on the left, apart from what the PSOE and the heirs of the Communist Party mean, there is hollow. Now, I have clothes. Rubalcaba said that nowhere is written in which the Socialist Party will not disappear. Surely the Greek, Italian and French socialists thought just that.
What holds the future?
It is very worrying. We will have to face a budgetary renovation. We will have to finance a growing expense in weapons and our effort will have to be the same as that of the rest. We will have to face the deficiencies of our trains, our health, our energy, insufficient regional financing, serious housing problems, that of immigration, which is one of the most serious. There will be a very serious cut in the funds for agriculture and regional funds. We are seeing what happened in England or in France regarding cuts. And for all those challenges we have a government that cannot govern. The auguries cannot be darker, unless there is a forceful reaction of Spanish society.
Auguries cannot be darker
What has changed in Spain for Vox to have more support up to the anti -immigration wave every day?
Spain is not a country with xenophobic drives. With their more and less, throughout history the three religions of the book have coincided. When has you started worrying? When it has ceased to be a minority phenomenon, among other things because we need them for the jobs we do not want to develop. You can’t see the problem without the ethical dimension. It is not a receipt that from the left you are willing to open the door to all without conditions. And that from Vox’s right they are willing to throw them out the window. Vox arose to respond to Catalonia but has grabbed like a float to immigration. We have a serious problem that I don’t know very well how it can be solved.
The PP spokesman, Borja Sémper, recently announced that he had got sick of cancer. What message does all the Spaniards who suffer from him already send him?
I send you a hug. I don’t know him personally, but I respect him. I am perfectly able to put myself inside your skin and I think what you are doing is the right thing. Faced with a disease of this dimension, the worst thing can be done is to be replaced. You have to try to keep life. Cancer is gradually approaching high treatment and healing parameters. You have to continue life with the greatest possible normality. It’s about living. The desire to remain useful to society, sometimes even more than chemotherapy, are useful.
And how is your life follow? Do you continue writing?
I’ve finished now. It is in the editorial and we will publish it in October. I have been a bit intractable book for a reader outside the historian’s profession. But I had a good time doing it and it was a debt that I had with me. Sometimes I spend quite difficult days to lead, but I don’t stop doing things because, in addition to making me feel useful, I am doing well.