parliament

British Member of the European Parliament and leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, Syed Kamall, stated that a referendum on independence is “a good way” to resolve the situation in Catalonia. Furthermore, the politician believes that without it “problems will continue and never really be solved". In an interview with the Catalan News Agency, the politician said that “democracy is a good way of resolving these issues" and stressed that the right to decide is “a very good principle”. "I believe in self-determination and I was very proud when David Cameron offered the people of Scotland a referendumto vote on whether they wanted to be an independent nation or remain part of the United Kingdom”, the MEP stressed.  

Latvian MEPs from different parties have criticised the Spanish Government’s withdrawal of accreditation from the Honorary Counsellor of Latvia, Xavier Vinyals. “It's not serious (accusing Vinyals of having displayed a pro-independence flag)", "it is a very funny reason to expel a counsellor", remarked the Social Democrat Andrejs Mamikins to the Catalan News Agency. The Conservative Roberts Zile also criticised the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José-Manuel García Margallo, for his "wrong attitude, clearly inadequate for the democratic standards of the 21st century". "It's a horrible decision", lamented the Green Tatjana Ždanoka. The Latvian Government and Latvian MEPs from the European People’s Party (PPE) refused to comment on the decision of Margallo.

The Catalan Minister for Territory and Sustainability, Josep Rull, assured that the Government will do everything in its power to keep the ban on bullfighting in Catalonia, which has been reversed this Thursday by the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC). Rull insisted that the executive’s will is to have “a country in which those shows which imply death and animal torture will not be allowed”. The civic platform 'Prou!' (“Enough!” in Catalan), which presented the Popular Legislative Initiative to the Parliament that led to the prohibition of bullfighting in Catalonia, also reacted to the TC’s decision. The platform considered it “a shameful return to the past” and described it as a “political decision”. The TC considered the Parliament to have “exceeded its competences” and “restricted the citizens’ rights and freedoms” when banning bullfighting in 2010 and defines bullfighting as an “intangible cultural heritage”.

Current Spanish Minister for Home Affairs, Jorge Fernández Díaz, has been reproved by the Spanish Parliament. All the parties in the Spanish Chamber, except from the currently governing People’s Party (PP) voted in favour of the bill presented by the Catalan European Democratic Party (PDECat) which called for Fernández Díaz’s immediate resignation. The current Spanish Minister for Home Affairs was recently in the spotlight after several tapes revealed his implication in a smear scandal to discredit Catalonia’s main pro-independence parties, ‘Convergència’ (now renamed PDECat) and left wing pro-independence ERC. The recordings, which were made in 2014, revealed a conversation between Fernández Díaz, and the Director of Catalonia's Anti-fraud Office Daniel de Alfonso Laso, who was dismissed soon after the tapes were made public.

European Free Alliance (EFA) director, Günther Dauwen, would approve if the Catalan Democratic Party (PDC), the new name for former liberal ‘Convergència’, were to leave the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and join the EFA in the European Parliament instead. “The family of regionalist nationalists would be more homogeneous and consistent and that could help to reinforce our message”, Dauwen told the CNA. Although he admitted that there hasn’t yet been any official request, if joining the EFA “could help to promote and make progress” for the Catalan cause “a positive decision could be expected”. Dauwen also noted that left wing pro-independence ERC, which together with other 44 groups belongs to the EFA, wouldn’t oppose welcoming the PDC to the family. PDC MEP, Ramon Tremosa has repeatedly said he was “not comfortable” within the ALDE because they voted “following instructions from Spanish Unionist ‘Ciutadans’, a private brand of the Conservative People’s Party”.

The Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont and the Parliament’s, Carme Forcadell, received this Tuesday the notice issued by the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) which suspends the conclusions of the Committee to Study the Constitutive Process. Four deputy clerks delivered the documents which warn that if the Parliament and the members of the Parliament’s Bureau ignore the resolution they “will be liable for responsibility, including criminal charges”. The TC also urges the Public Prosecutor to proceed with the corresponding actions against Forcadell. Last August, the TC suspended Catalonia’s pro-independence roadmap, ratified by the majority of the Parliament, claiming that the conclusions of the Committee to Study the Constitutive Process, the group responsible for designing Catalonia’s strategy towards independence, violated the Spanish Constitution. 

The ruling by the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) to possibly reverse the bullfighting ban in Catalonia has surprised many of the representatives in the European Parliament. Interviewed by the CNA, MEPs from the main political parties in the EuroChamber expressed their views on bullfighting and commented on Catalonia’s wish to keep the prohibition. Bullfighting is “unnecessary cruelty” rather than “culture”, stated European People’s Party (EPP) MEP, Sirpa Pietikainen and expressed his strong opposition to it being supported by EU funds. In a similar sense, Iva Vajgl, from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe considered it “anachronist” for Spain to promote bullfighting and described it as “a very cheap and populist art of entertainment”. European United Left MEP, Stefan Eck, noted that “there is a political interest behind” the TC’s intention to reverse the ban in Catalonia and encouraged Catalans to “stand up and demonstrate for their rights”.

The Catalan Chamber passed on Thursday the pro-independence forces’ agreed proposal to call a vote on independence in Catalonia by September 2017. Governing cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’, radical left CUP and alternative left alliance ‘Catalunya Sí que es Pot’ allowed the bill to go through. According to the bill, the referendum has to be “binding” and based on a “clear” question and a “binary” answer. In the event that ‘yes’ to independence wins, the bill foresees calling constitutive elections in March 2018. The document also establishes that “lack of agreement with the Spanish State” is not a reason for the referendum to be rejected. The Parliament also passed the ‘Catalunya Sí que es Pot proposal to hold a referendum “with real political and legal effects” and launch the necessary initiatives “before the Spanish State”. Spanish Unionist ‘Ciutadans’, the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) and the Conservative People’s Party (PP), refused to vote, considering the proposals to have emerged from resolutions which have been suspended by the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC).

Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, will face this Wednesday the first phase of a vote of confidence. First he will hold a speech during which he is expected to call for an agreed referendum in order to culminate Catalonia’s pro-independence process. On Thursday, the different groups in the Catalan Chamber will decide whether to renew their support in the President or not. For Puigdemont to pass the vote he needs a simple majority, that is to say more ‘yeses’ than ‘noes’.  Puigdemont announced in June that he will submit to a vote of confidence this September, after CUP’s veto of the budget for 2016. He considered then that the Government, led by pro-independence cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ with the support of CUP, didn’t have “guaranteed stability” and therefore couldn’t rule.

This Thursday is the first anniversary of the Catalan Elections of the 27th of September 2015, which led to the first pro-independence majority in the Parliament. Cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’, which gathered together representatives from civil society and politicians such as left wing ERC’s leader, Oriol Junqueras, former MEP Raül Romeva and former President Mas, amongst others, won the elections, obtaining 62 MPs in the 135-seat Catalan Chamber. However, they didn’t obtain an absolute majority and negotiated with radical left pro-independence CUP, who got 10 MPs, in order to have a majority in favour of independence in the Catalan Chamber. After Mas failed twice to be invested as President, since CUP repeatedly refused to support him, former Mayor of Girona and President of the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI), Carles Puigdemont, emerged as the candidate of consensus. Then, a term of office defined as ‘exceptional’ started, with the aim of launching a pro-independence roadmap and putting in place the basis for the future Catalan Republic.

The leader of the People’s Party (PP) stressed in Parliament that he represents the only “viable” option to form a “stable” government in Spain. “It is urgent for Spain to have a government as soon as possible, a government ready to act, to put an end to this democratic anomaly”, he said referring to the eight-month period of political deadlock in Madrid. The PP has the support of Ciutadans (C’s) and the Canary Islands nationalists, but their 170 seats fall short of the majority needed to form a government. The main opposition party, the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) will vote ‘no’ in the confidence vote scheduled for Wednesday, and so will Podemos and pro-Catalan independence parties ERC and PDC. As things stand, the PP does not have enough support for Rajoy to pass the confidence vote this week and Spain will continue without a functioning government.

The Spanish Parliament’s Bureau, headed by the Conservative People’s Party (PP) decided this Tuesday to integrate the Catalan Democratic Party (PDC), former liberal Convergència, into the Mixed Group rather than allow them to be constituted as a parliamentary group. Thus, the PDC will see its influence in the Chamber much reduced and its interventions will have to be shared amongst the other minority forces in the Mixed Group. The decision, which comes just one day after the PDC was denied its own group in the Senate, is regarded by the PDC as a political reprisal for the Parliament’s approval of the pro-independence roadmap. This will be the first time since 1977 that the former Convergència party, the party which ruled in Catalonia for more than 20 years in coalition with Christian Democrats ‘Unió’, won’t have its own group in the Spanish Parliament. 

The magistrates of the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) held this Monday an emergency meeting and unanimously agreed to accept the appeal presented by Spain’s executive, which urged to suspend Catalonia’s pro-independence roadmap, the next steps of which were approved last week by the Parliament. By the end of August the TC will decide if it will apply prison charges to the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell. The 72 pro-independence MPs in the Catalan Chamber and the Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, have expressed their solidarity with Forcadell and insisted that the decision to pass the conclusions of the Committee to Study the Constitutive Process was not hers but the democratic and majoritarian will of Catalans. 

Catalan Government Spokeswoman, Neus Munté responded this Friday to Spain’s decision to take the Parliament’s approval of the pro-independence roadmap before the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC). Munté considered it “unacceptable” that the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, could be suspended and insisted that the Catalan executive “won’t move” from its “deeply democratic way”. She insisted that Catalonia’s roadmap towards independence “remains intact” and stated that “no court could be higher than the democratic will democratically expressed” in the 27-S Catalan elections. “It would be unprecedented that the president of Parliament could be suspended from office by a court decision”, she stated.

The Spanish Government will urge the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) to allow it to claim criminal liability against the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, for having disobeyed the TC’s rulings. The current Spanish Cabinet, which met this Friday, also agreed to impede Forcadell from launching the pro-independence roadmap approved on Wednesday by the Parliament. In particular, the Spanish executive calls for the TC to “proceed to consider the witness of particulars in order to claim criminal liability against the Parliament’s President for disobeying the rulings of the TC, which all public servants are compelled to obey”. The petition also aims to expressly ban the Parliament’s President, the Parliament Bureau and the Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, from promoting any initiative in relation to the pro-independence process.