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The Spanish Government is carrying out “increased recentralisation” of powers, according to the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, and that of the Basque Country, Íñigo Urkullu. Catalonia and Euskadi are the main stateless nations within Spain, with most of their citizens calling for greater levels of autonomy or full independence. They are Spain’s main industrial centres and combined they represent 25% of its GDP (€270 billion) and 20.5% of its population (9.7 million people). The President of the Generalitat and the Basque Lehendakari met on Sunday in Vitoria and agreed on “working together” to face the centralist and homogenising policies of the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy. In addition, they will also work to defend their nations’ right to self-determination.

Hundreds of citizens have pled guilty in solidarity with the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, Vice President, Joana Ortega, and Catalan Minister for Education, Irene Rigau, who are being prosecuted by the Spanish authorities for having authorised and co-organised the symbolic vote on independence that took place on 9 November. On Tuesday morning, citizens queued to plead guilty in front of Catalonia’s Supreme Court. This comes a day after the Court launched a judicial investigation on the criminal complaints against three members of the Catalan Government filed by a few individuals, extreme-right organisations and the Spanish Public Prosecution Office, whose Director is directly appointed by the Spanish Government. The solidarity campaign is organised by the civil society association that organised the largest pro-independence rallies of the last 2 years, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC). Many leading politicians are also pleading guilty and all the parties in Catalonia, except the Spanish nationalist ones, have come out in protest against the penal prosecution of the Catalan Government on account of a political issue.

As he announced on Tuesday, the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, has begun a round of talks with the leaders of the parties that ran in the last Catalan elections supporting the right to self-determination. Mas aims to gather views and proposals about future scenarios and early elections. This includes the parties that backed the current self-determination process and the organisation of a consultation vote on November 9, by reaching an agreement in December 2013. But it also includes the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), which ran in November 2012 backing a legal self-determination vote but whose previous and current leaderships do not back the current process. After the talks, Mas will take a few days to think, and very likely to talk again with some parties, and on November 24 he will announce his own road map for the next few months.

On Thursday, the Spanish Government’s main advisory body – the State Council – has issued a non-binding report upon the request of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy against the alternative consultation vote that the Catalan Executive is organising for November 9. This body has unanimously recommended taking Catalonia’s participatory process to the Constitutional Court and requesting its suspension. Now, Rajoy has the green light to make such a step on Friday, only 9 days before the vote is supposed to happen. Meanwhile in Catalonia, all the parties supporting the self-determination process are insisting on continuing to work for high citizen participation on the 9^th of November. Furthermore, on Wednesday evening, they started campaigning and the Catalan Government launched the website to inform citizens about their exact voting place. Besides, those against independence in Catalonia are divided between those asking Rajoy to be smart and not to appeal, and those asking him to stop the vote.

The Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Òmnium Cultural, which are the civil society associations that organised the massive pro-independence demonstrations in 2012, 2013 and 2014, have given their support to the alternative consultation vote proposed by the Catalan Government but on the condition of early elections taking place within the next three months. On Sunday, the ANC and Òmnium gathered 110,000 people (according to Barcelona local police) in Catalunya Square, three times more than the pro-Spanish-unity demonstration that took place in the same place a week earlier. In front of a pro-independence crowd, the two civil society organisations demanded unity of action from the parties supporting self-determination. They called for "a massive mobilisation" in the alternative participatory process of the 9^th of November, being "the first round" of the early elections, which should become a 'de facto' referendum on independence.

In addition, the Spanish nationalist and populist partyUPyD compared Catalonia's self-determination process with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, in a letter sent to all the 751 Members of the European Parliament. Furthermore, it states that "defending democracy in Europe" means stopping Catalonia's "illegal referendum", thus denying the existence of a Catalan nation.  Furthermore, after the recent measures adopted by Catalan authorities to organise a non-binding consultation vote on independence, UPyD – with no representation in Catalonia – filed on Wednesday a judicial complaint at the Supreme Court against the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, and most of the members of the Catalan Parliament's Bureau, including its President, Núria de Gispert. UPyD accuses all them of "disobedience" while Mas has also been accused of "an alleged prevarication offense", as well as of "usurpation of powers" and "embezzlement".

The Law on Consultation Votes, which will be used to call the non-binding consultation vote on independence scheduled for the 9^th of November, has been approved by 79% of the Catalan Parliament, with the only opposition being from Spanish nationalists People's Party (PP) and Ciutadans (C's). This bill was already foreseen in the 2006 Statute of Autonomy, Catalonia's main law after the Constitution, but it had not been approved yet. Now, once the law is published on Catalonia's Official Journal (DOGC), the Catalan President will immediately sign the Decree calling November's vote. The Spanish Government announced last week it already had two appeals ready to be filed to the Constitutional Court – even though the definitive law had not been approved yet. If the Constitutional Court accepts the appeals, it will immediately suspend the Catalan Law and the Decree for a 5-month temporary period, which could be extended until it reaches a final decision.

After the controversy of the last few weeks about whether the independence consultation initially scheduled on the 9^th of November might be postponed if the Spanish authorities were to ban it, the 4 Catalan Parliament groups supporting this vote appeared together on Wednesday and reinstated their commitment to such a consultation. They reaffirmed their unity of action and their will to vote even if the Constitutional Court bans the call, based on the Law on Consultation Votes to be approved by the Catalan Parliament in September. Leading figures from the governing centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU, the left-wing Catalan independence party ERC, the Catalan green socialist and post-communist coalition ICV-EUiA and the radical left and independence party CUP emphasised that the "people had democratically elected to decide on their collective future through the polling station".

After being indicted for several months for an influence peddling and bribery case that is under judicial investigation, Oriol Pujol has now  resigned as Secretary General of the CDC, the Liberal and largest force within the two-party Centre-Right pro-Catalan State Coalition Convergència i Unió (CiU) that runs the Catalan Government. In addition, he has resigned as Member of the Catalan Parliament. Oriol Pujol, who is the son of the historical leader of conservative Catalan nationalism Jordi Pujol, was firstly indicted in March 2013 and back then he "delegated" his party and parliamentary tasks – where he was the President of CiU's parliamentary group. However, he did not officially resign as Secretary General and continued as MP, insisting in his innocence. Judicial, political and media pressure have increased in the last year and in March 2014, he was indicted for bribery for the same case, a tender to grant licenses to technical vehicle inspection garages in Catalonia.