independence

The Catalan self-determination process and the 27-S elections' plebiscitary character were debated on Tuesday afternoon in the Irish Parliament (Oireachtas). The session took place in Dublin's Leinster House, introduced by the Chairman of the Commission for European Affairs of the Irish Parliament, the Labour Party’s Dominic Hannigan. The Catalan Government’s Secretary for External Affairs, Roger Albinyana, and the Secretary-General of Diplocat, Albert Royo, spoke about the Catalan self-determination process to members of the Irish Congress (Dáil) and Senate (Seanad), representing the majority of the political parties. The session was also attended by the Catalan Government’s delegate to the United Kingdom and Ireland, Josep Suàrez Iborra.

The Catalan National Assembly (ANC) has overwhelmingly voted 'yes' to the internal consultation on its participation in the negotiations aimed at shaping a highly transversal electoral proposal for the 27-S elections. On Monday, the President of the ANC, Jordi Sànchez said that in the coming days his organisation will talk with all the stakeholders involved in trying to reach the best agreement for Catalan independence, remaining open to different options. However, if a deal is not reached by 20 July, the ANC will leave the negotiation process that – according to Sànchez – will have to be completely public. In January, Mas' original proposal was to have a single list with political parties and civil society organisations but parties such as ERC rejected the idea, arguing for the need to have both right-wing and left-wing pro-independence options. In June, Mas' second proposal was to have a unitary list led by pro-independence organisations that – according to their will – could invite politicians on board.

The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, said Wednesday that his June proposal for civil society groups to lead a unitary electoral list "does not at all break" the pact made in January between the CDC and ERC to run separately in the 27-S elections. The leader of the centre-right CDC argued that if civil society groups accept his proposal, civil society "won´t just invite the CDC and Mr. Mas" but "whomever they want" because the list would be "transversal". After Mas made these comments, the President of the centre-left ERC said if civil society groups drafted an electoral list excluding politicians altogether, the ERC would be the "first to accept" their proposal, as long as other independence parties also decide not to run for election. "We will never be an obstacle", Junqueras remarked.

The president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), Jordi Sánchez, guaranteed Thursday that the Assembly will "never" abandon its cross-platform cooperation, nor will it put any portion of its sovereignty to the side. "The day that the ANC defends one side will be the end of the ANC", he said during a press conference at the Born Cultural Centre. Sánchez, however, has asked that his words not be interpreted as a response to the proposal President Artur Mas launched this past Saturday. Mas called for a single, unitary list in favour of Catalan self-determination for the 27-S elections that included civil society organisations. Sánchez did warn that it is "difficult" to accept because there are widely divergent opinions in the internal debate. The Assembly will decide in the coming week how to respond to Artur Mas, and Sánchez pointed out that between "yes" and "no", they will seek other variants.

After running together in every election since 1978, Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) and Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (UDC) are splitting apart. The Liberal party CDC, which is the larger force within the centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU (running the Catalan Government since 2010), supports full independence from Spain while the Christian-Democrat UDC does not have a clear stance on the issue and its leadership is against it and is supporting a Catalan State confederated with Spain. After UDC held an internal consultation over the issue last weekend, which split the Christian-Democrats into two camps, crisis within CiU seemed inevitable. On Wednesday, UDC announced it was leaving the Catalan Government but not CiU. The Liberal CDC met that night and, on Thursday morning, announced "the CiU is over"; that they were splitting from the Christian-Democrats for "deep reasons".

Tensions over the issue of independence between the two parties forming the CiU coalition have caused a government crisis in Catalonia. Three ministers from the Christian-Democrat party UDC, the smaller party within the CiU, have left government after their allies of 37 years, CDC, presented them with an “ultimatum”. The governing council of UDC decided on Wednesday, with 16 votes in favour, 10 against and 2 abstentions, that Vice-president Joana Ortega, Minister of Agriculture Josep Maria Pelegrí and Minister of Home Affairs Ramon Espadaler, who is also the secretary general of UDC, should quit Artur Mas’ government. UDC voted on Sunday by a slim majority in favour of an ambiguous stance on the issue of independence, in which the party supported the right to self-determination but fell short of stating whether or not Catalonia should actually vote ‘yes’ to full independence from Spain. Following the result, the Liberal party CDC, led by Mas, urged their coalition partners to state clearly whether or not they are for independence. Elections to the Catalan Parliament are expected to be held on the 27 of September, and may be considered a plebiscite on independence. Tensions between CDC and UDC over the reluctance of the latter to clearly support independence make it unlikely that they will run together, although UDC has said it will still provide parliamentary support to CDC in the coming months and won’t split the coalition at local level.

Between 1993 and 2014, a growing trend of foreign investment was registered in Catalonia, a study by Barcelona’s Chamber of Commerce shows. This upward trend continued unbroken in the long-term, not even being interrupted by the decline of -15.8% recorded in 2014. According to the study, it is not possible to conclude that – over the period analysed – investment in Catalonia "has been adversely affected by the political context", in particular the Catalan self-determination process. In addition, for 2015 – even after just the first few months of the year have passed – the business environment seems to suggest that investment in productive capacity will be higher than in 2014.

The centre-right pro-Catalan State two-party coalition CiU, which runs the Catalan Government, may be on the verge of splitting up after three-and-a-half decades, and having run together in all the elections. The smaller force within the CiU, the Christian-Democrat party UDC, is going through serious internal tension over Catalonia's independence debate. The party leadership does not support independence, while a significant part of its members does. Added to this, the larger force within the CiU, the Liberal party CDC, is now the main party within the pro-independence camp. However, UDC does not have an official stance on independence and has been avoiding the issue so far, supporting Catalonia's right to self-determination, the organisation of a referendum on this issue and the creation of a Catalan State with full sovereignty, but without specifying its stance on the crucial point: whether this state would be fully independent or would be confederated with Spain. On Sunday, the party held an internal consultation on the party's role in the self-determination process. The vote became a plebiscite on the UDC's leadership. 51% of the members supported the leadership's approach and 46% voted against it.

Ada Colau is the new Mayor of Barcelona. It is the first time that the Catalan capital has a woman as Mayor. Colau, who led the alternative left and green coalition Barcelona en Comú, won the last municipal elections – held on 24 May. However, she lacked support to reach the absolute majority in the City Council and be elected Mayor. During the last 3 weeks, she has been negotiating with the other leftist parties over forming a coalition government or at least obtaining their support and reaching the 21 vote minimum necessary in the City Council’s mayoral election. None of the other parties have so far agreed to form a government coalition with Colau, but 3 of them have backed her to be elected Mayor. They are the left-wing Catalan independence party ERC, the Catalan Socialist Party PSC and the radical independence and alternative left party CUP.

The President of the Catalan government, Artur Mas, has told parties favouring the right to self-determination on Thursday to "enhance" the plebiscitary character of the 27-S elections after the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) ruled the Catalan government's preparations for the 9-N election unconstitutional. The 9-N ballot asked voters whether Catalonia should be independent. According to Mas, the judgment evidences that the Constitution has become a "dead end" and that there is no other route left except for a plebiscitary vote. He warned that the TC cannot "override or erase" the vote of 2.3 million people on 9-N.

International experts have participated in a day of debate over the hypothetical scenarios and the possible consequences regarding membership or expulsion from the European Union of an independent Catalonia. The panellists ruled out automatic expulsion, as well as automatic membership, in any scenario. Graham Avery, Senior Adviser of the Brussels-based think tank European Policy Centre (EPC), underlined that "the most important" element in deciding what would happen to an independent Catalonia would be "the process" through which it achieves this independence. If it was carried out with the agreement of the Spanish Government, the transition towards full EU membership would be quite fast and smooth. If it was done unilaterally, then a wide range of scenarios are possible, with risks and costs rising. However, a majority of experts have stated that even in the worst case scenario, the costs would not be as high as the Spanish Government is saying. In addition, they affirmed that the EU is likely to adopt a pragmatic approach and that a transition regime is likely to be set up, with basic policies and freedoms not being interrupted.

Catalonia's Supreme Court (TSJC) has ruled against the petition filed by the Spanish Ministry of Education that asked to reopen the enrolment process for the next school year in order to use registration forms in which parents could explicitly choose whether they wanted their children to be taught in Spanish as an instruction language. In the last few years, the Spanish Government has been undertaking a judicial battle to change Catalonia's school model, which has been developed with an extremely wide consensus over the last 35 years and completely guarantees the knowledge of both Spanish and Catalan, as results show. The model is based on the linguistic immersion principle, through which children are mostly taught in Catalan, although many flexible measures are included. However, the Spanish Government would like to have Spanish as an instruction language as well, despite most of the pedagogic experts considering that if this were the case, many children from Spanish-speaking environments would not have a proficient knowledge of Catalan and would not be bilingual.

The leader of the alternative left and green coalition Barcelona en Comú, Ada Colau, has announced that she will attend the massive demonstration for independence scheduled for Catalonia's National Day (11 September). In 2014, the demonstration gathered more than 1.8 million people in Barcelona. Colau won the municipal elections 2 weeks ago and therefore is likely to become the next Mayor of the Catalan capital. Last week, she said she would not join the self-determination road map agreed between the centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU and the left-wing independence party ERC because she refuses to reach agreements with the right-wing CiU. Pro-Spanish unity media started to speculate that she did not support Catalonia's self-determination process. This Monday Colau highlighted her commitment to the process and announced her will to contribute "to a constituent process that should allow for real sovereignty", expanding the current process' plurality.

In times of economic crisis, the Mariano Rajoy-led Spanish Government has been making recentralisation a main driver of its political agenda, using the economic recovery as the reason for passing the reforms. An additional step in this direction was taken on Monday with a new regulation forcing Spanish Autonomous Communities to seek permission from the Spanish Ministry of Finance before granting loans and guarantees to private companies located in their territories. From now on, Madrid's permission will be conditional upon the applicant's compliance with deficit targets. The new regulation substantially curbs the Autonomies' powers to shape their industrial policies, following a reform passed in May that modifies both the Organic Law for Financing the Autonomous Communities and the Organic Law on Budgetary Stability and Financial Sustainability.

The leadership of the Christian-Democrat party UDC supports Catalonia's self-determination but it is against full independence; it supports the creation of a Catalan State with greater powers than it currently has while remaining within Spain, which should embrace its plurinational nature and become a confederal country. However, an important part of UDC's base does support independence and has been trying to force an open debate and consultation on it within the party, in order to set the official party stance on this issue. Currently, the leadership's vision represents UDC's traditional stance on this issue, but the party does not have an official stance on independence yet. This situation has provoked tensions within the small party but also with their allies for the last three-and-a-half decades, the Liberal party CDC, which is the largest force within the two-party coalition CiU that currently runs the Catalan Government. UDC announced an internal consultation on 14 June to fix the party's definitive stance on this debate. However, the leadership has presented a question that avoids independence; a formulation that has created quite some controversy among UDC members.