PSOE rules out the Catalan Socialists’ patch to keep Catalonia within Spain

Madrid (ACN).- “There is only one reform of the Constitution and it the one we have already agreed on”, stated the Secretary General of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, in response to the Catalan Socialists’ proposal to approve a “singular redefinition” of Catalonia’s “fitting” within Spain. Rubalcaba said that the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) – which is member of the PSOE – had not sent him any proposal on this issue. “They should explain it to me. I do not know anything about it”, he said when he was asked about the PSC’s proposal. In an exclusive interview with the CNA, the PSC’s Spokesperson at the Catalan Parliament, Maurici Lucena, explained that a temporary measure should be adopted urgently to better fit Catalonia within Spain while waiting for a global reform of the Spanish Constitution, a lengthy process that can take years. According to Lucena, the temporary measure should shield” Catalonia’s self-government powers, language and culture from recentralisation and homogenisation attempts. It would also include a fairer fiscal scheme for Catalonia, keeping the ranking position according to the inter-territorial fiscal redistribution. According to the PSC, this initiative would avoid “the collision” between those in favour of independence and those in favour of the status quo.

The leader of the Spanish Socialists, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, asserted he was not aware of the PSC’s proposal. In addition, he stated that “there is only one reform of the Constitution” and that this reform cannot be fragmented into pieces and developed in different stages. Rubalcaba stressed that the Spanish Constitution should be globally reformed and that the debate has to be a single one. This way, he ruled out the PSC’s proposal to approve a temporary measure to better fit Catalonia within Spain, while the global reform to develop the country in a true federal system was being debated on.