catalan way

Carles Puigdemont was invested as Catalan President number 130 with the absolute majority of the Catalan Parliament. A last-minute agreement between pro-independence forces cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ and radical left CUP allowed the new government to start working and finally unblock the deadlock over the investiture. Mas decided to step aside and named president of the Association of Municipalities for Independence and mayor of Girona, a city 100 km north of Barcelona, Carles Puigdemont as his successor. A member of former governing party liberal Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya, Puigdemont ran for cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ in Girona and has repeatedly expressed his commitment to Catalonia’s pro-independence roadmap. 

Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI) president and mayor of Girona city Carles Puigdemont has been instated as Catalan President number 130 by an absolute majority of the Parliament. Puigdemont, a member of cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ proposed by current Catalan President Artur Mas, obtained 70 votes in favour, 63 against and 2 abstentions. The investiture debate took place this Sunday after a last-minute agreement between pro-independence forces ‘Junts Pel Sí’ and CUP and just before all the legal deadlines were due to expire and new elections would have had to been called in Catalonia.

Just when calling for new elections seemed to be unavoidable, cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ and radical left CUP have finally reached an agreement to resolve the presidency of the new Catalan government and launch the independence roadmap. Current Catalan President and ‘Junts Pel Sí’s number four, Artur Mas has decided to step aside and president of the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI) and mayor of Girona city, Carles Pugidemont, has been appointed as the candidate of consensus. In exchange, some of CUP’s MPs will resign in order to guarantee the stability of the new government. The investiture debate will take place on Sunday and a new President would have to be elected before midnight.

Left wing ERC leader and ‘Junts Pel Sí’ number five, Oriol Junqueras, considers it “irresponsible” to talk about elections and urged current governing party liberal CDC and radical left CUP “to be loyal to the country” and “try to find an agreement”. Junqueras noted the “sacrifices” that ERC has made in order to reach the present situation and urged the other pro-independence forces to “use up all the deadlines” as agreement “is still possible”. “Very complicated negotiations have been solved in a few days, even in a few minutes” he stated. According to ERC’s leader, an agreement is better than “a scenario full of uncertainties” which would be elections in March. 

Current Catalan President Artur Mas admitted to being ready to call for elections, but won’t do so until the 11^th of January, when the legal deadline expires. However, Mas insisted that cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ “can’t make any other offer” to radical left CUP since “the presidency of the Catalan Government is not a fish auction”. “Junts Pel Sí has moved on everything which mattered. CUP hasn’t moved on the only thing that wasn’t important: the ‘who’” he stated. “Our mistake was to trust in CUP’s sense of state” he assured and added that CUP “didn’t understand that to turn Catalonia into an independent state it is necessary to add and not to subtract, voting rather than vetoing”. According to Mas, accepting the conditions of those who “put the vetoes and the crosses” would be “the end of the pro-independence process.”

Current governing party liberal CDC commented on CUP’s ‘no’ to investing President Mas as President and accused the radical left party of being “immature” and “putting the revolution before independence”, according to CDC’s general coordinator, Josep Rull. “CUP hasn’t been able to make operative the majority of 72 pro-independence MPs” stated Rull and added that “by accepting CUP’s demands it will look like the minority of 10MPs out of 135 is leading the process”. Rull denied that cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ would present an alternative candidate to Artur Mas. “We have moved because we wanted to be respectful of the 27-S democratic mandate” he emphasised “and they told us to reach agreements to make the roadmap possible”. 

Radical left pro-independence CUP won’t invest current Catalan President Artur Mas as President. On Sunday representatives from CUP’s local and territorial divisions and the 11 from the different organisations related to the radical left party made their choice regarding the next steps on the pro-independence roadmap. “We are not satisfied with this result” admitted CUP MP Gabriela Serra. “CUP has always supported Catalonia’s independence” she emphasised “we have made a move and now we will wait for the others to make a move as well” she stated, referring to pro-independence cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’. “The process doesn’t finish today. It will continue with or without Mas’ investiture” she concluded. ‘Junts Pel Sí’ have repeatedly insisted that Mas is their only candidate and, therefore, the calendar from now on will most likely lead to new elections, which would take place in March.

Current Catalan President Artur Mas assured that he “would make a fool” of himself if he were to call elections before using up the time to constitute a new government, which legally finishes on the 10^th of January. Until then “there is life”, he assured and admitted that cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’s only choice is to wait for radical CUP’s decision after their General Assembly ended in a tie. Mas insisted that elections are not his “priority” and warned that CUP could “cause” new elections but not “a change in President” as this would “derail” the pro-independence process. According to Mas, ‘Junts Pel Sí’s proposal “has long been studied” and as long as CUP “is within its right to accept it or refuse it” the cross-party list also has “the right to say this is how far we have come”, he concluded.

Pro-independence radical left CUP’s General Assembly, set up to vote on current President Mas’ investiture, ended in a tie. 1,515 participants opted for rejecting Mas’ candidature and continuing negotiating until the 9^th of January and 1,515 supported cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’s proposal, including Mas’ investiture. CUP’s number one, Antonio Baños, defined the Assembly’s tie as “a challenge” rather than a problem. “‘Junts Pel Sí’ has the opportunity to make another proposal, as that which is laid on the table doesn’t have majoritarian support” stated CUP MP Anna Gabriel. However, ‘Junts Pel Sí’s top member, Raül Romeva, insisted on Mas’ candidature as “the proposal is still valid”. CUP’s Political Board will meet on Saturday to decide the next step and if there is not an agreement by the 9^th of January, new elections will be called automatically.

The eyes of Catalan politics will be set this weekend on pro-independence radical left CUP’s General Assembly, which according to CUP members Natàlia Sànchez and Xevi Generó “will probably be CUP’s most decisive assembly yet”. The 4,000 CUP members registered to attend the event won’t only have to decide on whether to instate current Catalan President Artur Mas but also on the social action plan presented by cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’, as well as discussing the basis to start building the Catalan Republic. The assembly will mark the end of the negotiation process between pro-independence forces CUP and ‘Junts Pel Sí’, which started right after the 27-S Catalan Elections. 

The results of the 20-D Spanish Elections and the negotiations to form a new government in Catalonia, which are still ongoing, are worrying the business world. During the celebration of the eighth edition of the Carles Ferrer Salat Awards, which recognise remarkable initiatives in the business world, Foment del Treball’s president Joaquim Gay de Montellà highlighted the difficulties in forming “stable and strong” governments. “Everything would be easier if it would have been possible to start a dialogue process” he stated in a speech before current Catalan President Artur Mas and the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, José Manuel García Margallo. Gay de Montellà also announced that “the risk of recession has moved away and the economy is running”.

Companies, entities and citizens have European funding opportunities at their disposal to make their projects grow. To promote these EU resources and facilitate access to them, the Catalan government has launched a website which includes the available European funding opportunities and the calls for entry in progress. “We must break the myth of a lack of access” to the EU institutions, stated the Catalan Permanent Representative to the EU, Amadeu Altafaj, and added that “they are more open and more accessible than what people may think”. The Catalan Foreign Affairs Secretary, Roger Albinyana, encouraged everybody to “make the most of the European funding opportunities” and called Catalans to be “even more ambitious”.

The negotiations between cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ and radical left CUP reached their deadline this Tuesday. The pro-independence forces have agreed on a 63-page proposal to start building the Catalan Republic and establish the legality of this constitutive process. Now the document will have to be validated by CUP’s base, which will gather this Sunday at the party’s General Assembly. “We are continuing with our democratic commitment” stated 'Junts Pel Sí' top member Raúl Romeva, who highlighted that they are following the “citizens’ mandate expressed in the 27-S elections”. Regarding CUP’s veto against current Catalan President Artur Mas, who is 'Junts Pel Sí's only candidate, Romeva emphasised that they “will instate a presidency rather than a president” and restated their proposal of “a collegiate presidency composed by a President of the government and three government commissions”. 

The negotiations between pro-independence forces radical left CUP and cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ to constitute a new government in Catalonia are continuing. The results of the 20-D Spanish Elections and the victory of alternative left coalition En Comú Podem in Catalonia and the good result of left wing ERC show that Catalonia is turning to the left, according to CUP. The party has therefore reinforced their ‘no’ to instating Artur Mas as Catalan President and has called on ‘Junts Pel Sí’ to propose “an alternative presidency which could generate a greater consensus”. CUP has also invited En Comú Podem and their partners in the Catalan Parliament, Catalunya Sí que es Pot, to join the “constitutive process of the Catalan Republic”.

Current Catalan President Artur Mas congratulated the winning list in Catalonia running for the Spanish Elections, alternative left coalition En Comú Podem and emphasised the coalition’s commitment to Catalonia’s right to decide. “We take Podemos at their word and ask them not to take a single step backwards” he stated. Mas admitted that Democràcia i Llibertat, the coalition which includes his party, liberal CDC, didn’t obtain the expected results, “we have been mercilessly attacked by the Spanish State’s powers” he said. Left wing pro-independence ERC’s candidate for Barcelona, Gabriel Rufián, noted that his party “obtained its best result ever” in the Spanish Elections “we have tripled the result of 2011” he emphasised. “Those who have been repeatedly ignored and who don’t have the support of any factional power have won the elections in Catalonia” stated Barcelona’s mayor Ada Colau, referring to the En Comú candidates, which were part of the En Comú Podem coalition.