citizens

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Catalan Ministry of Social Affairs to change welfare regulation to include LGBTI 18 to 23-year-olds among recipients

From "making voters’ voices heard", to "defending Spanish interests": how parties see their role on the independence question in Brussels

The Catalan Department for Foreign Affairs, International Relations and Transparency will promote a seminar to share the main experiences of participative democracy worldwide. The initiative will start on the 9^th of March at Barcelona’s Centre of Contemporary Culture (CCCB) and will consist of eight sessions focused on the constitutive process which took place in Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile. According to the Department, the aim of these sessions is to share recent experiences which took place in different countries in Europe and Latin America where citizen participation was not only innovative but key in the elaboration of new constitutions. The seminar will include the presence of international professors and experts in this field.

Thousands of citizens have expressed their support for Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, who faces trial on Friday for allowing the pro-independence roadmap to be put to vote amongst the Catalan MPs. The main civil society pro-independence associations, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), Òmnium Cultural, the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI) and also the Catalan Association of Municipalities (ACM) have called on citizens to hit the streets throughout Catalonia to support Forcadell. One of the main rallies took place on Barcelona’s Sant Jaume Square, which is between the Catalan Government’s headquarters, Palau de la Generalitat, and the Catalan capital’s City Hall. The prosecution of Forcadell and the judicial response of the Spanish Government to Catalonia’s pro-independence aspiration have also provoked international rejection and criticism across Europe.

Last Sunday Socialist candidate François Hollande won the French presidential elections. After 17 years of conservative government the French voted for change including the French community of Catalonia, which had the possibility to express itself in 19 polling stations set up all around Catalonia. Between the first round of voting -two weeks ago- and the second round, the rate of electoral participation in Catalonia increased from 37,5% to 42%. The Franco-Catalan community came out strongly in favour of the Socialist candidate, with 52.79 % for Hollande as against the figure of 42.21% who voted for Sarkozy.

Up to 1.000 French have applied for dual citizenship in a move to 'honour' their relatives, who suffered the consequences of the war and were sent into exile