Spain's Government Office won't clear Sol camp, citing assembly rights

Government Delegation leaves Sol camp in place

Nobody is being evicted from the Puerta del Sol. The Government Delegation (the state's representative office in Madrid) has responded with a formula that closes no doors and opens none either: it will keep taking "appropriate measures" in the square and will do so, it says, while respecting the right of assembly. In plain English: the campers can keep camping and gathering. The ball stays where it was.

The approach is nothing new. The Delegation replies that it will act in respect of the right of assembly. And in the middle of it all, an occupied square that nobody wants to dismantle with bulldozers before knowing how much the photo will cost.

Right of assembly or right to camp?

The distinction sits at the heart of the conflict and it is no small matter: part of the analysis holds that the right of assembly is not the right of occupation, nor of camping, nor of dirtying public streets. On paper, it is an elementary legal separation. In practice, the line between protesting and staying overnight is decided by police judgment, and that judgment, when cameras are rolling, becomes elastic.

What is being debated is not the rule. It is the cost. Some point out that a baton-charge eviction costs votes and recall the precedent of 2011, when the Interior Ministry of the day also left the campers in place. The cynical reading is the most repeated: nobody is removed because the electoral math comes out negative. The institutional reading is duller: a fundamental right is being protected. Both can be true at once, and that is precisely the problem.

The double standard the comparisons expose

The parallels come in a chain. What would happen if the camp were set up in front of the Moncloa, the Prime Minister's residence? And outside the delegate's own home? The answer circulating is unanimous and bland: eviction in five minutes. Nobody proves it with a case. Everyone intuits it.

The most uncomfortable contrast comes from Formentera. The island filed 41 complaints over illegal camping during last summer, according to the reports gathered. In other words: sleeping on a Balearic beach earns you a case file; sleeping in the country's most symbolic square earns you a statement about fundamental rights. Someone will say these are different things. And they are: one has cameras and the other has sand.

There are more takes on the table. That the camp coincides with the week of the Ceuta decrees and serves as a smoke screen. That it is occupied by the very people who love to lecture about public order. That the first downpour will clear the square out. The last one is, by far, the cheapest prediction to verify.

What could happen now

Little, and slowly. The Delegation has set no deadline, given no date and announced no operation. The answer has already been given, and it is that there is nothing new.

With these cards on the table, the likeliest outcome is that the standoff drags on until weather or fatigue settles it, not a judge. Betting on an imminent eviction is a bad wager: nobody wants to sign the photo of batons in Sol. And betting on growth is no better: the calendar works against any camp that depends on good weather. The only certainty is that the square remains occupied and the statement still says nothing.