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The Spanish Government is willing to “dialogue” with the Catalan Government, but has closed the door to a self-determination referendum, because it “liquidates the essence of the [Spanish] nation”, said the Spanish Vice President, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, this Wednesday. Requested by the Catalan Socialist MP Meritxell Batet and the spokesman of the Spanish alternative left party Podemos, Iñigo Errejón, to permit reform of the Constitution in order to respond to Catalonia’s independence movement, the politician stated that to do so “requires consensus on the point of departure and arrival”. Furthermore, she stressed the necessity to achieve “an agreement on the diagnosis of the problems and the solutions”, a goal that currently is not possible given the disagreement seen in the Spanish Parliament, she added.

The Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, is suspicious regarding Spain’s executive willingness to dialogue. During this Wednesday’s session of control in the Parliament, Puigdemont stated that Catalonia deserves a bilateral negotiation with the Government in Madrid and that he considers anything other than this a way to “dilute and disguise what is really going on” in Catalonia and therefore “confuse public opinion”. Pro-independence radical left CUP MP, Mireia Boya, went a bit further and urged Puigdemont not to go along with Spain’s “siren calls” in relation to its supposed openness to dialogue. On the other hand, Xavier García Albiol, the leader of the Catalan branch of Spain’s governing party PP, called for Puigdemont not to be like “a statue” before the “signals” sent by the Spanish Government. 

Re-elected Spanish President, the conservative People’s Party (PP) Mariano Rajoy unveiled this Thursday the names in his new cabinet. Catalan MP Dolors Montserrat has been designated Spanish Minister for Health, Social Services and Equality. Spanish Vice President, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría will keep her role and assume the Territorial Administrations portfolio, which was previously part of the Spanish Finance Ministry. Two of the most controversial and belligerent ministers regarding Catalonia’s pro-independence aspirations, the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, José Manuel García-Margallo and the Spanish Minister for Home Affairs, Jorge Fernández Diaz, will no longer be in Rajoy’s cabinet.

The current situation of judicialisation of politics in Catalonia and the obstacles that the Spanish executive puts in the way of the pro-independence roadmap “are similar”to previous episodes “of military coup d’états”in Spain, stated CUP MP, Anna Gabriel. The representative of the radical left pro-independence party told the CNA that the Catalan institutions haven’t been “threatened by criminal means”so much for “many years”and she predicted that such threats could be increased “if the pro-independence process continues to move forward”. Thus, Gabriel considered that it would be “ridiculous”to appeal the Spanish Constitutional Court’s decision to suspend the pro-independence roadmap, ratified last week by the Parliament, since “those who take part in the coup d’état don’t come to reason”.