Catalonia will ask Spanish Parliament to transfer referendum powers

Barcelona (ACN).- The Catalan Parliament will formally ask the Spanish Parliament to transfer the powers to organise referendums to the Catalan Government, following Article 150.2 of the Spanish Constitution on devolution. This procedure is similar to the one used for Scotland’s referendum, when Westminster Parliament transferred such powers to Edinburgh. On Friday, the 4 parliamentary groups that reached an agreement on an exact question wording and date for Catalonia’s self-determination vote have drafted a bill at the Catalan Parliament to start this petition’s process. They are asking for the transfer of “the powers to authorise, call and hold a consultation referendum, to allow Catalans to express [their opinion] on Catalonia’s collective political future”. The bill also asks for the transfer to be made as soon as possible to allow “the vote to be organised before the end of 2014”. The aforementioned groups represent 6 political parties, ranging from the Christian-Democrats to the Extreme Left, and including Liberals, Social-Democrats and Greens. They are the CDC, UDC, ERC, ICV, EUiA and CUP. Since they hold 64.5% of the seats, the bill should be approved in the coming weeks. Furthermore, each party will present their own motions and bills along with the petition at the Spanish Parliament, where they hold 22 of the 350 seats. Then, the Spanish Parliament will have to decide how to answer, although it is likely it will reject the petition since the Chamber is dominated by the Spanish nationalist People’s Party (PP), which holds an absolute majority and runs the Spanish Government. The PP’s continued will to not make any concession was confirmed again today. The day after Catalonia’s agreement was announced and after its weekly Cabinet Meeting, the Spanish Government insisted they “will not negotiate”, using the Spanish Constitution as their main argument:  it does not allow them to do so since “sovereignty” “belongs” to the Spanish people as a whole according to the legal text. However, the Spanish Constitution has already been changed and the constitutional consensus from 1978 is broken.

The Constitution recognises Catalonia’s nationhood and that its relationship with Spain has to be approved through a “binding referendum”

The Spanish Constitution was approved just after Franco’s military Fascist dictatorship, with the army and the Francoist regime controlling most of the factual powers and institutions. Despite this context, the Constitution states that Spain is formed by “nationalities and regions”, and talks about “the peoples” that form Spain. “Nationalities” was the compromise reached to refer to “nations”. In fact, at that time, the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) argued that Spain was “a nation of nations”, emphasising the pluri-national nature of the Spanish State. Furthermore, the text recognises the specificity of Catalonia and the Basque Country since their relationship with Spain has to be approved through “a binding referendum”, which is not necessary in the rest of Spain. For those reasons, and mostly because that Constitution was the only way to leave behind dark decades of political, social and cultural repression (when Catalan language was forbidden, for instance) to reach democracy, the Catalan citizens (including nationalist parties) approved the text in 1978.

Catalonia’s nationhood is rejected from 1981 onwards

However, the military coup of 1981 changed Spain’s political landscape and the Autonomous Community model was born and generalised. Besides, the pluri-national nature of Spain was never recognised; on the contrary, Catalonia was denied the status of nation and its self-government was questioned on many occasions. Furthermore, since 2000 the Spanish Government started a recentralisation process that was answered by Catalonia in 2005-2006, when it presented the reform of its Statute of Autonomy, equivalent to a Catalan constitution.

Catalonia already proposed a ‘third way’ that was rejected between 2005 and 2010

The Statute reform was seeking greater political and fiscal powers for the Catalan Government and a true recognition of Catalonia’s nationhood and language. It was a ‘third way’ between the status quo and independence. The text initially proposed by the Catalan Parliament was greatly lowered-down by the Spanish chamber and finally approved. Then, despite the frustration of part of the Catalan society, this modified text was approved through a binding referendum by the Catalan People in 2006. The People’s Party (PP) – which has always been marginal in Catalonia and now runs the Spanish Government – took many articles of the text to the Constitutional Court. Meanwhile, other Autonomous Communities reformed their own statutes, including some articles of the Catalonia’s statute. Ironically, the PP did not take those exact same articles to the Constitutional Court. The members of the Constitutional Court took 4 years to reach a decision. In 2010, they significantly modified the text previously approved by a referendum by the Catalan people. At that time, around 1.1 million Catalans protested in one the largest demonstrations ever organised in Barcelona. For the firs time, a majority of the participants started to voice “independence” chants. The Constitutional consensus was broken for many Catalans.

Spain’s reaction was indifference towards Catalonia’s claims and further recentralisation

The reaction in the rest of Spain was complete indifference or downplaying the sentence of the Constitutional Court. The Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) did not defend the text it had approved four years earlier in the Spanish Parliament and had campaigned for in the referendum. Most of Madrid-based intellectuals remained silent. The People’s Party intensively showed its satisfaction. Since 2011, the PP runs the Spanish Government and it has been implementing a non-stop recentralisation with the economic crisis as an excuse. This has fuelled Catalan independence support. Furthermore, it has put in place measures attacking Catalonia’s self-government and language, a true red-line for a wide majority of Catalans. The colossal demonstrations in September 2012 and September 2013 show the massive support independence has gathered in Catalonia.

The Constitution has already been modified

The Spanish Government’s recentralisation measures are in fact a hidden Constitutional Reform, since they go against the 1978 spirit and the decentralisation logics. Besides, many would say that by not respecting the pluri-national nature of Spain, the Constitution was never truly developed in Spain and the Constitutional agreement never truly respected. However, ironically, the PP and the PSOE agreed between August and September 2011 to amend the Constitution following the instructions of the European Central Bank and some foreign governments, such as Germany. In only two months, both parties modified the Constitution to include a limitation to public debt and deficit.

The Catalan referendum does not need a constitutional change

Despite all of this, the Spanish Government and the PP are now saying they cannot make any changes to the Spanish Constitution to allow Catalan citizens to vote. However, there is no need to touch the legal text according to some Constitutional experts. With political will, there are 5 legal ways to allow Catalan citizens to hold a self-determination vote within the current legal framework. But the Spanish establishment, represented by the PP and PSOE, is absolutely opposed to consider such interpretations.