Politics

The President of the left-wing Catalan independence party ERC, Oriol Junqueras, stated on Tuesday that "the greatest expression of civil disobedience is voting when they prevent you from voting", referring to the ban that the Spanish Constitutional Court is likely to issue on the self-determination consultation vote scheduled on the 9^th of November. Furthermore, Junqueras also stated that he is convinced that the Catalan President will call for the vote and "will put out the ballot boxes". He also added that the ERC could sit at the Catalan Executive if this action were to "fully protect the consultation vote". The Spanish Government is totally opposed to such a vote and has already announced that it will appeal to the Constitutional Court, which has a majority of its members directly appointed by the People's Party (PP). The Court already lost most of its legitimacy in 2010 when it trimmed the Catalan Statute of Autonomy.

In 2015 the employees of the Catalan Government and related institutions and public companies will receive their full salary once again after having suffered a 7.5% reduction over the last 3 years. The Spokesperson for the Catalan Government and Minister for the Presidency, Francesc Homs, announced the measure on Tuesday, after the weekly Cabinet meeting. Furthermore, the Executive will also stop the 15% reduction of working hours and salary of temporary workers in the public sector. Those austerity measures were approved in the 2012 budget as a drastic way to cut public spending in order to reduce the public deficit. The Spanish Government has been unilaterally imposing strict deficit targets on the Catalan Executive while it maintained an unfair inter-territorial fiscal scheme with Catalonia and reduced its resources. In fact, the Spanish Government and most of the other Autonomous Communities did not reduce public salaries in the worst years of economic crisis, while the Catalan Government was the first one to launch the ambitious austerity plan.

Two days before the massive pro-independence demonstration will take place in Barcelona on Catalonia's National Day, more than 500,000 citizens have already signed up for participating in it. This year's pro-independence rally is likely to break all records, even though in last year's event demonstrators managed to form a 400km-long human chain spanning from north to south along all of Catalonia, attracting the world's attention. In 2013, more than 1.6 million people participated in the demonstration that was imitating the 1989 Baltic Way, according to the Catalan Police. Back then, 455,000 people had previously registered to participate in one of the human chain's 788 stretches. Now, as for last year's event, registration is not obligatory but recommended in order to guarantee that all the rally stretches will be full and a gigantic Catalan flag will be formed along the 11km itinerary. The demonstration will take place along Barcelona's two main avenues, forming a colossal V-shape to symbolise 'Vote', 'Victory' and 'Will', all three which start with a 'V' in Catalan.

Spain's Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, told the Executive Board of the governing People's Party(PP) that he has "all the measures ready" to stop the Catalan self-determination vote from happening. However, Rajoy avoided giving details about such measures and disclosing specific plans. The Spanish PM emphasised that his stance on Catalonia's right to self-determination and the organisation of an independence vote has remained unchangeable for the last two years. Rajoy took pride in not having made any concession to the demands coming from Catalonia and not having sat around a negotiation table. In fact, the PP and the Spanish authorities are totally opposed to such a vote, imposing a restrictive interpretation of the Constitution to reject a demand that is shared by some 80% of the Catalan population. Furthermore, Rajoy has also confirmed that the Spanish Government will immediately appeal the Catalan Law on Consultation Votes, despite such a law having not yet been approved.

The judge has not accepted the complaint filed by the extreme-right and Spanish nationalist trade union Manos Limpias against Carme Forcadell, President of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), the main civil society association supporting independence. Barcelona's first-circuit court number 14 does not see evidence or hints pointing towards any offence and therefore it has decided not to launch a judicial investigation and instead it rejected the complaint. On the 21^st of August, Manos Limpias – which has nothing to do with the Italian homonym organisation from the 1990s – announced the complaint against Forcadell, accusing her of promoting "the subversion of the constitutional order" and therefore "provoking sedition".

The European Union will adopt a "pragmatic approach" and employ "common sense" in the case of an independent Catalonia or Scotland and would not work to expel them, according to experts gathered at a conference on self-determination on Friday at the prestigious Sciences Po University in Paris. At the conference, which was organised with the support of the Catalan public-private soft diplomacy council Diplocat, experts highlighted the importance of "international recognition" for the process of acceptance of an independent Catalonia within the EU. Graham Avery, member of the Brussels-based think tank European Policy Centre (EPC) and Honorary Director General of the European Commission, said that the EU "has no problem in accepting changes in the borders of states", but that it has never experienced a secession which would create "two new member states".

On Friday, in Badalona (Greater Barcelona), the Secretary General of the PP, María Dolores de Cospedal, launched the idea to form a wide-spectrum coalition against secession in the next Catalan elections, which should unite all of the parties opposing independence from Spain. However, it has been rejected by the main parties which were targeted, and only the Spanish nationalist UPyD, which gets marginal results in Catalonia, has welcomed the initiative. According to Cospedal, this united list should bring together the PP (running the Spanish Government), UPyD, the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), the anti-Catalan nationalism and populist C's, and the Christian-Democrat UDC, which is part of the two-party centre-right pro-Catalan state coalition CiU, which runs the Catalan Government. The PSC and UDC – which recognise Catalonia's right to self-determination - have totally rejected the idea. Even so, the PP's leader stated that "in Catalonia there is an undercover dictatorship", pushing for "a single way of thinking".

The Instituto Cervantes in Utrecht was obliged to cancel the presentation of 'Victus', a novel by Catalan author Albert Sánchez Piñol on the Spanish Succession War and Barcelona's military siege of 1714, after which Catalonia lost its self-government institutions and political, social and cultural repression started. According to the author, his Dutch editorial house Signatuur and the Communication Director of the Cervantes Institute, the Spanish Embassy in The Netherlands obliged them to cancel the event the day before it was supposed to happen for political reasons. However, the Spanish Government is denying any political veto and states the cancellation was due to "diary problems". The scandal has been covered by Dutch media and Juliette Van Wersh, Publisher at Signatuur, stated they are "shocked" for a decision against "freedom of expression". The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, stated that this veto is "in line with the international boycott" which Spanish authorities are carrying out against self-determination.

The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, stated once again that the self-determination consultation vote will take place on the 9^th of November but he also added that "things have to be done in the right way". In front of businesspeople at an event of Barcelona's Chamber of Commerce, Mas stressed that "both things have to come together", meaning voting and doing things right. He underlined that "this means always respecting an existing legal framework". After the controversies on whether the vote should take place if the Constitutional Court bans it, Mas insisted that the call will be based on Catalan legislation and that the Court might not ban it in the end. Besides, he admitted that Catalonia's "freedom" would come with some economic costs, but that those of continuing in the current situation would be much higher. Mas also said that Pujol's scandal "will not affect" him or the Catalan Government.

The new Secretary General of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), Pedro Sánchez, met on Wednesday in Barcelona with the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, to talk about the self-determination consultation vote scheduled on the 9^th of November. Sánchez told Mas that he considers such a vote to be "illegal" and therefore it cannot take place. In addition, he stressed that the PSOE is totally opposed to Catalonia's right to self-determination and underlined that "national sovereignty" belonged to the Spanish people as a whole. However, he said he was proposing "a solution" to the current conflict between Catalonia and the rest of Spain: a reform of the Constitution to transform Spain into a true federal state. Despite this reform, Catalonia would not be considered "a nation". Sánchez underlined that once the agreement on this reform would be reached, Catalans would have the opportunity "to vote" on it. Therefore, for Sánchez, Catalans would only have the choice to vote for the current status quo, or for staying in Spain with greater self-rule but without being considered as a nation.

As it was announced on Tuesday, all the opposition parties except the Catalan Socialists (PSC) have filed requests to create investigation committees at the Catalan Parliament as a result of the fiscal fraud confessed by the former President of Catalonia, Jordi Pujol, and other offenses he or his entourage could have allegedly committed. Two requests were filed separately on Wednesday morning, one presented by left-wing parties supporting self-determination (ERC, ICV-EUiA and CUP) and the other presented by the two Spanish nationalist parties (PP and C's). The first one aims to check whether there have been cases of "fraud, fiscal evasion and political corruption […] in the context of Pujol's case" and "in the context of public-private contracts […] during the last decades". The second one aims to scrutinise "the existence of bank accounts in fiscal paradises owned by current or former officials of the Catalan Government, their illicit gain and/or the earning of illegal commissions".

On Tuesday, as it was expected, the Catalan Parliament has approved to request that the former President of Catalonia, Jordi Pujol, provides the Chamber with further explanations about his family's fiscal fraud which he confessed to in late July. The request has been unanimously approved, including by the governing centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU, which was led by Pujol for three decades. The former Catalan President has accepted to appear in front of the Parliament despite it not being "obligatory", as he noted down. However, he asked to do it after the 22^nd of September "in order not to interfere" with the self-determination process and "the high political voltage events" of the coming days. The opposition parties supporting self-determination are angry with Pujol's delay and will ask for a parliamentary investigation committee to be launched.

The Spanish Finance Minister, Cristóbal Montoro, did not hesitate to link the fiscal fraud confessed by the former Catalan President, Jordi Pujol, to the rest of the politicians supporting Catalonia's independence. In a public hearing before the Spanish Parliament, as the manager of the country's Tax Agency, Montoro said that "those who radicalise their political speeches, pretending to challenge the State, are at the same time making money out of it and earning personal benefits", putting Jordi Pujol together with all those supporting independence. In addition, Montoro stated that the Spanish Tax Agency will act against Pujol and launch "administrative and judicial" processes. The Catalan Government accused Montoro of using the State's structures to back "partisan interests" instead of merely "fighting fraud". Furthermore, the CiU criticised Montoro for linking Pujol's case to the Catalan self-determination process.

The President of Catalonia, Artur Mas, held an exceptional meeting on Monday evening with all the Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Directors of the Government he chairs in order to prepare for the coming weeks, which are crucial in the self-determination process. Mas told the 200 people present about "his certainty" that "there will be a consultation vote, that he will call it and that people will vote", summed up Francesc Homs, Minister for the Presidency and Spokesperson for the Executive, at the end of the meeting. The President asked them to be "committed" and play "a leading role" within the self-determination vote instead of being "mere spectators or commenters", since "the country is ready". "Obviously this [the self-determination vote] is an operation including the entire country, and a lot of people, but the Government is also part of it in a very essentials way, and he asked us to honour this in such decisive times", added Homs.

The former Catalan President Jordi Pujol, who confessed in late July that his family had committed fiscal fraud for years by having a hidden fortune in Andorra, will also be requested to provide further explanations before the Catalan Parliament by the coalition he founded and used to lead, the centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU, which currently runs the Catalan Government. On Monday the CiU confirmed that they will vote on Tuesday for the parliamentary appearance request, joining the rest of Catalan parties. Pujol's fraud has shocked Catalan society and has been presented by Madrid-based forces as a fatal threat to the self-determination process. However, there are increasing amount of news pointing towards the theory that the Spanish authorities (Government, tax agency and public prosecutor) and the two main parties (PP and PSOE) knew about Pujol family's fraud for decades and covered it up in exchange for his opposition to independence. In fact, Pujol had always worked to better fit Catalonia within a more modern Spain and only embraced pro-independence stances two years ago.