Constitutional reform will not be discussed by main Catalan parties unless self-determination is included

Barcelona (ACN).- The Spokesperson for the Catalan Government and Minister for the Presidency, Francesc Homs, has stated that they are "sceptical" about the constitutional reform that the Spanish Prime Minister and leader of the People's Party (PP), Mariano Rajoy, is starting to consider. The Spanish Minister for Justice, Rafael Català, said 10 days ago that his department and the PP would "study a constitutional reform" which would not make any concession to the demands for Catalonia's right to self-determination. For the last 3 years, Rajoy and the PP have been unilaterally blocking any attempt to launch a debate about a constitutional reform and have even downplayed it. Considering the fact that Catalonia's independence is a distinct possibility if pro-independence parties win the forthcoming 'de facto' referendum scheduled for 27 September, now the Spanish Government has started to say it would consider studying a limited reform, particularly to strengthen its own powers. This Monday, Francesc Homs, 'right-hand man ' of the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, said that they will not even consider such a constitutional reform if it does not include Catalonia's right to self-determination, sending a clear message to the Spanish PM.

At the 47^th edition of the Catalan Summer University (UCE), which takes place each August in Prades (a town located in the French part of Catalonia, in the Pyrenean County of Conflent), Francesc Homs reacted to the constitutional reform that the Spanish Government would be studying. Homs said he does "not trust" the reform that Rajoy's Executive would be preparing. In addition, he stressed that the Catalan Government and the main parties in Catalonia will not consider any constitutional reform proposal that "does not include freedom and democracy as [ruling principles] for Catalonia", because it is "not possible to include Catalonia [in such a constitutional reform] with the recognition of its right to self-determination".

In this vein, Homs stressed that Catalonia "must have memory" and remember the grievances suffered during the last decades of democracy but also in the last centuries under the Spanish Government's rule. He also said that Catalans should walk "together and united" in the coming months in order "to prevent the [Spanish] State from imposing once again its own will on Catalonia's interests". According to Homs, the way the Spanish Government has been acting, particularly during the last 10 years, is clear proof that Catalan citizens should not trust it.

The Catalan Minister recounted how the Spanish institutions trimmed the current Catalan Statute of Autonomy, which had been approved by the Spanish Parliament and the Catalan people through a binding referendum in 2006 but which was then deeply modified in 2010 by the Constitutional Court, after an appeal filed in 2006 by the PP. Homs also recounted "the express reform" of the Spanish Constitution in 2011 agreed among the PP and the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), which "was agreed upon in only 15 days" in order "to eliminate the financial autonomy of the Autonomous Communities". For these reasons, the main Catalan parties would only study a constitutional reform that would include the possibility of Catalan citizens being able to vote and decide on their own collective future, he insisted.