Pro-independence parties name Josep Rull of Junts+ new parliament speaker

Pro-independence parties have named former Catalan territory minister Josep Rull the new parliament speaker. 

Junts per Catalunya, Esquerra Republicana (ERC), and CUP finalized the deal just minutes before the first session of the new parliament following May’s Catalan election began.

Parliamentary procedure dictates that in the first session, lawmakers must elect a new parliament bureau, including the parliament speaker. 

With the deal, the chamber will be managed by a pro-independence figure again, as it has in the most recent legislatures.

Rull was named the new speaker in the second round of voting with 59 yes votes, beating the Socialist candidate Sílvia Paneque, who received 42 votes. The rest of the lawmakers in the chamber either voted null or voided their ballots. 

In Monday's voting, a clear majority was needed in the first round of voting to name a new parliament speaker, with 68 votes of the 135 MPs required for that.

Rull was named chamber head in a second round of voting afterward, which was contested between only the two candidates who received the most votes in the first round of voting. A simple majority was required for that. 

In his speech after being named speaker, Rull pledged to guarantee freedom of speech and the right to vote on motions in the parliament.

"No MP should be prosecuted for expressing their opinion or using their right to vote," he said. "This bureau will insist that this right be strongly protected."

The speaker defended that "everything should be able to be discussed, without pressure from any public power, nor the threat of being deprived of liberty." In this context, Rull recalled the "anomaly" of the empty parliamentary seats of Carles Puigdemont, Lluís Puig, and Ruben Wagensberg.

Another priority for Rull is to "reverse the linguistic emergency," as he implored MPs to be "the Catalan legislature."

Who is Josep Rull?

Josep Rull served as the Catalan territory minister during the 2017 independence referendum and was one of the political leaders sentenced and jailed for his role in the independence push. 

Rull spent over three years in prison before eventually being pardoned by the Spanish government in 2021.

Ever since the law of sedition was removed from the Spanish penal code in 2022, he has been legally able to return to frontline politics, as his sentence initially barred him from holding public office. 

He was the only minister who took a picture of himself at work in his office on Monday, October 30, 2017, the first working day after the Catalan executive was dissolved.

In the 2019 trial, he was accused of preventing a ship lodging Spanish police officers ahead of the referendum from docking in the port of Palamós, which was managed by his department. 

During the sessions, Rull accused the Constitutional Court, which declared the 2017 referendum illegal, of acting as a political tool in "having been systematically utilized by the Spanish government to suspend all initiatives by the Catalan parliament."

In his closing remarks, he stated: "Self-determination is transcendental. There will always be more people after us. There are not enough prisons to lock up our desire for freedom."

Controversy over right of MPs to vote remotely

Spain's Constitutional Court last week annulled the right of MP Lluís Puig, who left Spain after the 2017 independence referendum, to vote online in the Catalan parliament. 

The ruling left uncertainty over the pro-independence majority in Monday's vote: if Carles Puigdemont, who is also abroad, and Puig cannot vote online, the pro-independence bloc would have fallen from 59 to 57 votes, the same number as the Socialists and conservative People’s Party combined. 

However, the interim board in charge of today's plenary session was chaired by the oldest member of the chamber, who happens to be Agustí Colomines of Junts+.

At the beginning of the session, Colomines announced that the exiled MPs would be allowed to vote remotely, with Junts+ official Albert Batet casting the votes on their behalves.

Far-right Vox announced before the session that they were ready to file a legal appeal against the ruling should it go ahead, while PP leader Alejandro Fernández, in the first intervention of the plenary session, told the chamber that if the remote votes are accepted, they too will appeal to Spain’s Constitutional Court.

Meanwhile, the Socialists criticized that the "minority of blockage" that allowed Josep Rull to be named speaker.

Socialist MP Alícia Romero said in a press conference that the votes for Rull "is not a functional majority" to govern Catalonia.

Romero added that this pro-independence bloc "already failed" in the last term when it had an absolute majority, and instead urged for a broad left-wing coalition.

Elsewhere, Esquerra Republicana hailed the election of an "anti-repressive" parliament bureau. Their MP Marta Vilalta outlined that ERC's goal was not to win the parliament speaker post, but to form the "anti-repressive" bureau.

Yet, the Esquerra spokesperson insisted against connecting today's agreement with negotiations for a presidential investment.