Politics

The so-called ‘operation dialogue’ launched by the Spanish executive aims for Spain’s executive to have a greater presence in Catalonia. In line with this purpose, Spanish Vice President and recently named Minister for Territorial Administrations, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, travelled to Barcelona this Wednesday. However, despite having committed to holding a meeting with her Catalan counterpart, Oriol Junqueras, Sáenz de Santamaría hasn’t even made a date for such a meeting. On the other hand, she met first with the opposition’s leader, Inés Arrimadas and with the Catalan Socialists’ leader, Miquel Iceta. The Catalan Government’s spokeswoman, Neus Munté, considered it “surprising” but “congratulated” Saénz de Santamaría for her “initiative” especially after the Spanish executive’s “enormous absence” in this sense. “Confrontation and using the courts have been the only answers so far”, lamented Munté.

The cross-party coalition 'Junts pel Sí' (JxSí) and the pro-independence radical-left CUP entered in the Catalan Parliament’s register a motion to defend the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell. The representative is facing criminal liability for allegedly disobeying Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) rulings and allowing the pro-independence roadmap to be put to vote on the 27th of July. According to the text presented by the pro-independence parties, the prosecution of Forcadell “for any parliamentary action flagrantly infringes upon parliamentary inviolability”. Furthermore, the proposal highlights that the criminalisation of parliamentary activity “poses a serious threat to democracy”. The motion was entered into the Parliament’s register on Monday as an urgent extraordinary request and with the express request to debate it in a plenary session. The text also aims at defending “the freedom of expression and the right of initiative of the members of the Catalan Parliament”.

At least a dozen Catalan City Councils will open their doors on the Spanish Constitution Day, on Tuesday the 6th of December. In addition, in almost 300 cities, such as Barcelona, the councillors of pro-independence parties will work, although City Hall will remain closed. Besides this, different protest and solidarity activities will also take place throughout Catalonia, following the recommendations of the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI), the promoter of the initiative. The organisation sent a manifesto to the elected members of the City Councils so they can read it in front of the municipal offices this Tuesday at 12 pm (CET time). The text deems the Spanish Constitution a “corset” and “a prison for democracy” that “impedes the Catalan people from freely deciding their political future”. The symbolic opening comes just two months after Spain’s National Day festivity, on the 12th of October, when several City Councils decided to open the municipal offices.

The laws for “disconnecting” Catalonia from Spain will not become effective unless the ‘Yes’ to independence wins the 2017 referendum. The spokesman of radical left pro-independence CUP’s national secretariat, Quim Arrufat, said in an interview with the Catalan News Agency that “no step forward will be made unless it is supported through the ballot boxes”. According to Arrufat, all the disconnection laws (the Legal Transition, the Catalan Tax Office and the Social Security System regulations) will have a clause that will impede them from entering into force if the ‘No’ to independence achieves a majority in the referendum. The politician focused on the legal transition law, which foresees the process for the Autonomous Community of Catalonia to become an independent state. He specified that the regulation will be applied in two steps, as part of the law will have to become effective before the referendum in order to call it even if the Spanish Government blocks it. The other clauses would only come into force in case of a pro-independence majority in the referendum.

The legal services of the State Attorney are already “studying” the impugnation of the Catalan Government’s draft budget for 2017, which includes an allocation of €5.8 million to guarantee that the independence referendum scheduled for September will be carried out. The announcement was made on Wednesday by the delegate of the Spanish Government in Catalonia, Enric Millo, who stated that this part of the accounts “could be challenged” in the near future by the Spanish state. Furthermore, Millo believes that the allocation could be annulled by the Spanish Constitutional Court, which may consider it to derive from the Declaration of the 9-N symbolic vote, which has already been declared unconstitutional. The delegate of the Spanish Government in Catalonia believes that this budget “doesn’t contribute” to the relationship between the Catalan Government and the Spanish one. However, he reiterated his “outstretched hand for dialogue” and confirmed he will be meeting with the Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, this Friday. 

The Spanish Government is willing to “dialogue” with the Catalan Government, but has closed the door to a self-determination referendum, because it “liquidates the essence of the [Spanish] nation”, said the Spanish Vice President, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, this Wednesday. Requested by the Catalan Socialist MP Meritxell Batet and the spokesman of the Spanish alternative left party Podemos, Iñigo Errejón, to permit reform of the Constitution in order to respond to Catalonia’s independence movement, the politician stated that to do so “requires consensus on the point of departure and arrival”. Furthermore, she stressed the necessity to achieve “an agreement on the diagnosis of the problems and the solutions”, a goal that currently is not possible given the disagreement seen in the Spanish Parliament, she added.

The Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, is suspicious regarding Spain’s executive willingness to dialogue. During this Wednesday’s session of control in the Parliament, Puigdemont stated that Catalonia deserves a bilateral negotiation with the Government in Madrid and that he considers anything other than this a way to “dilute and disguise what is really going on” in Catalonia and therefore “confuse public opinion”. Pro-independence radical left CUP MP, Mireia Boya, went a bit further and urged Puigdemont not to go along with Spain’s “siren calls” in relation to its supposed openness to dialogue. On the other hand, Xavier García Albiol, the leader of the Catalan branch of Spain’s governing party PP, called for Puigdemont not to be like “a statue” before the “signals” sent by the Spanish Government. 

The Government’s draft for the 2017 budget was published in the Parliament’s Official Journal this Tuesday. On Wednesday, the different groups in the Catalan Chamber will be able to present appeals and the whole bill will be discussed on the 20th of December. “This is the best budget possible”, Catalan Vice President and Minister for Economy and Tax Office, Oriol Junqueras, stated right after presenting the draft. “The time of cutbacks is over”, he assured and emphasised that the budget for 2017 has been enhanced in comparison to the previous one “both as a whole and in each department”. Indeed, the budget for 2017 allocates €1.1 billion more to social expenditure than the bill for 2015 – which was extended for 2016. The Health System with €8.7 billion and Education and Universities with €5.5 billion are the areas with the highest amounts allocated.

The Government’s draft budget for 2017 presented to the Parliament's President, Carme Forcadell, this Tuesday includes an allocation of €5.8 million to guarantee that the pro-independence referendum scheduled for September will be carried out. In particular, the bill establishes €5 million for electoral processes and €0.8 million for participation. Moreover, the budget also includes hidden allocations which would allow the referendum to take place despite the inevitable suspension of the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC). In 2014, the budget also allocated €6 million oriented toward holding the 9-N symbolic vote in independence. At that time, the allocation was included within the Public Administrations department. However, this time the allocation would be an explicit competence of the Catalan Ministry for Economy and Tax Office. 

The Catalan Minister for Education, Meritxell Ruiz, asked her counterpart in the Spanish Government, Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, to prove the willingness of the Spanish executive to “dialogue” by suspending the additional regulation of the Education Reform (LOMCE) which foresees that the Catalan Government has to pay 6,000 euros for each pupil who wants to receive education in Spanish in private schools. According to Ruiz, “whether this new path of dialogue actually starts or not” will depend on “the Minister’s answer to this petition”. The LOMCE “is an ideological law”, stated Ruiz this Monday, before meeting the Spanish minister in Madrid and added that the law, which now the new Spanish Government has opened to modification, “is terrible from a pedagogical perspective” and “breaks apart the Catalan education system”. 

Thirty-nine international recognised names in the field of diplomacy, economics, the arts, sports and research have been appointed members of the recently created Advisory Council of the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia (Diplocat). The members of the body, aimed at projecting Catalonia to the world, will take part in it for a period of four years, which can be renewed, and will do so in an altruistic manner. Diplocat decided to set up this body during a plenary session held on Thursday at the Sala Tàpies at the Catalan Government headquarters, Palau de la Generalitat. Some of the most well-known names of the Council are: former US ambassador, Ambler Moss; former Mexican ambassador, Arturo Sarukhan; Representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Central Europe, Montserrat Feixas; businesswoman Sol Daurella; musicians Jordi Savall and Josep Carreras; Swedish MEP Bodil Valero; philosopher Josep Ramoneda; chef Carme Ruscalleda and footballer Xavi Hernàndez

Spain’s use of the courts to block the pro-independence roadmap has been reported to the 751 members of the European Parliament by three Catalan MEPs. Josep Maria Terricabras and Ernest Maragall, from left wing pro-independence party (ERC), and Ramon Tremosa, representing the Catalan European Democratic Party (PDeCAT) have sent a letter to their colleagues in the Eurochamber lamenting what they describe as “democratic regression in Spain”. The letter criticised the summonsing of Catalan elected representatives, such as Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, for “allowing a parliamentary debate on independence”. It also laments that former Catalan MP and current PDeCat spokesman in the Spanish Parliament, Frances Homs, faces trial for co-organising the 9-N symbolic vote on independence in 2014. 

“The Spanish Government is maintaining its judicial offensive against the Catalan Government and no one is sitting at the table but the Government of Catalonia”, reported the Catalan Government spokeswoman, Neus Munté, this Tuesday. The statement comes after Catalonia’s Supreme Court (TSJC) notified the president of the Parliament, Carme Forcadell, that she will have to testify on the 16^th of December for allowing the pro-independence roadmap to be put in vote on the 27^th of July. Forcadell's case and the prosecution of the organisers of the 9-N symbolic vote held in 2014 are not an exception, but rather an example of the monopolisation of the Catalan question in the complaints issued by the Spanish Government to the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC). According to the data offered by Munté, the TC has 18 pending appeals issued by the Spanish executive against Catalan laws and 27 more issued by the Catalan Government for conflicts of competences.

Catalonia’s Supreme Court (TSJC) has called the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, to testify before the court on Friday the 16th of December. She is accused of “disobeying” a Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) ruling when allowing the conclusions of the committee to study the constitutive process to be assessed in the Parliament. The Court also requests testimony from the second Vice-president of the Parliament’s Bureau, José María Espejo, from Spanish Unionist ‘Ciutadans’, the Bureau’s second secretary, David Pérez, from the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) and the Bureau’s third secretary, Joan Josep Nuet, from alternative left alliance ‘Catalunya Sí que es Pot’. The Court ordered them to testify as witnesses over the pro-independence roadmap, which was put to vote in the Catalan Chamber on the 27th of July.