Mas makes his government

As of Monday, Catalonia has a new regional premier. Today will see the swearing-in of the 11 departmental chiefs who will make up the government of Artur Mas, of the center-right Catalan nationalist bloc Convergència i Unió (CiU), long headed by the veteran Jordi Pujol. Four members of Pujol's last cabinet team are back; another four are independents; one star recruit comes from the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC); and there are only three women -a somewhat paltry number.

Mas has surrounded himself with close associates, from the CiU hardcore; those who have tirelessly accompanied him through seven years of wanderings in the desert as the Socialists ruled the region in a coalition. However, it would be unfair to speak of a mere continuity of "Pujolism." Jordi Pujol would never have included seven independents in any of his governments. The new premier's discourse fits into the new semantic paradigm of CiU and, in a way, amounts to a break with old habits. CiU's previous leader would never have spoken of the "national plenitude of Catalonia" at an inaugural event. The new terminology springs from Convergència's verbal radicalization since the Constitutional Court's ruling against parts of the Catalan autonomy statute. But it remains to be seen whether these words will translate into actions. For the moment it seems that the Catalan leader wishes to take a calm line on his political future, as recommended in the moderate tradition of Pujolism, which kept CiU in regional power for so many years.

The most relevant element in the new regional cabinet is the presence of the socialist Ferran Mascarell at the head of the culture department. This is an unexpected and somewhat disconcerting development, because until a few days before making this decision, Mascarell was considering the possibility of heading the Socialist slate for Barcelona's mayoral race, an office which the Socialists consider as good as lost, if the surveys are to be trusted.

The inclusion of Mascarell is more than a mere window-dressing operation, as it might seem to be at first sight. The new culture head thus orphans the PSC's most Catalanist sector, who hoped to build a renovation of their party upon the candidacy to the mayoralty of Barcelona; and it also affords CiU an entrée in cultural sectors that had so far turned their backs on it, or among which, considering them hostile, it had never ventured to move. In any case, we seem to be looking at an intelligent takeover operation against a disconcerted PSC, still reeling after a beating by the voters, and in search of some way to recover its élan.

The independent Andreu Mas Colell at the head of economy offers hope to those who want to see an intelligent approach to the crisis. Other signs, however, are somewhat more worrying: the new head of the interior department, Felip Puig, immediately announced his intention to review the effectiveness of the video cameras in regional police stations (installed after some notorious cases of brutality). This promise has earned him applause from the police unions, but certainly not from groups concerned with civil rights.