initiative

An initiative aims to achieve more reasonable working hours and better balance between work and family

The Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI) wants to internationalise the pro-independence process in Catalonia from the local sphere. It has therefore launched a campaign to explain the pro-independence process, the roadmap to achieve independence and the Catalan Government’s will to hold a referendum in September 2017. In an interview with the Catalan public radio station, Catalunya Ràdio, the president of the organisation, Neus Lloveras, detailed that the intention of the initiative is to report on the pro-independence process, avoiding the filters of Spanish diplomacy and amplifying the message of the Catalan local sphere worldwide. AMI started to send letters to the mayors of all the state capitals and the 100 largest cities in the world on Monday. In total, the organisation predicts that 548 mayors from five continents will receive a letter explaining the Catalan reality “without interference from Spain”.

The cross-party coalition 'Junts pel Sí' (JxSí) and the pro-independence radical-left CUP entered in the Catalan Parliament’s register a motion to defend the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell. The representative is facing criminal liability for allegedly disobeying Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) rulings and allowing the pro-independence roadmap to be put to vote on the 27th of July. According to the text presented by the pro-independence parties, the prosecution of Forcadell “for any parliamentary action flagrantly infringes upon parliamentary inviolability”. Furthermore, the proposal highlights that the criminalisation of parliamentary activity “poses a serious threat to democracy”. The motion was entered into the Parliament’s register on Monday as an urgent extraordinary request and with the express request to debate it in a plenary session. The text also aims at defending “the freedom of expression and the right of initiative of the members of the Catalan Parliament”.

The Timetable Reform Initiative is a Catalan organisation created to achieve more reasonable working hours and greater reconciliation between work and family. Last year, a Catalan Parliamentary commission studied this reform, and this year, the legislative changes will create a timetable law.Last week, the General Secretary of the Commerce Confederation of Catalonia (CCC), Miquel Àngel Fraile, said that Catalan trade is willing to join a “D-Day” to mark the start of the time reform in Catalonia. For the past few weeks, the village of Prats de Lluçanès, in Barcelona region, has been at the forefront of time reform in the hospitality sector with a pilot programme that proposes that restaurant owners advance the opening hours of their establishments.