“I assume the mandate that Catalonia should become an independent state in the form of a republic,” Mr Puigdemont told the regional parliament in Barcelona.

“I propose suspending the effects of the declaration of independence to undertake talks to reach an agreed solution.”

Though Mr Puigdemont stopped short of seeking the explicit support of the chamber for the declaration of independence in a vote, a move that would have closed the door to any negotiated solution, the declaration plunges Spain into the unknown.

A Government official speaking on condition of anonymity told reporters that Madrid “considers it inadmissible to make an implicit declaration of independence and then leave it in suspension in an explicit manner”.

The Spanish Government has maintained that any unilateral declaration of independence would be illegal and has promised action “to restore law and democracy” if the parliament of the autonomous and affluent north-eastern region presses ahead.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy could take the unprecedented step of dissolving the Catalan Parliament and triggering new regional elections, the so-called “nuclear option”.

Madrid could also ask the courts to strike down a declaration of independence as unconstitutional.

Despite renewed calls for dialogue with Madrid, the proclamation makes a negotiated solution more difficult as Mr Rajoy has said he would not talk to the Catalan leaders until they drop plans for independence.

Following the announcement, a convoy of tractors flying secessionist flags paraded near parliament and thousands of separatists gathered in the promenade next to Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf, where the movement’s main grassroots group has called for a rally.

In his speech overnight, Mr Puigdemont slammed the Spanish Government’s response to the referendum and the violent police reaction that left hundreds injured on voting day.

However, he said Catalans have nothing against Spain or Spaniards, and that he wishes that they understood each other’s situation better.

“We are not criminals, we are not crazy, we are not pulling off a coup, we are not out of our minds,” he said.

“We are normal people who want to vote.”

But Opposition Leader Ines Arrimadas of the Ciudadanos (Citizens) party was quick to slam Mr Puigdemont’s speech.

“This is a coup. Nobody has recognised the result of the referendum. Nobody in Europe supports what you have just done,” she said.

“Stop saying the Catalan people are united. Above all after what you have done. You have forced us to turn against one another,” she said, addressing Mr Puigdemont during the parliament session.

“The majority of Catalans feels they are Catalans, Spanish and Europe … we won’t let you break our hearts into bits.”

More ABCnews

Reuters/AP

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The vote is scheduled for Oct. 1 but the central government in Madrid says the referendum is illegal and can’t happen.

In the council’s statement, UN human rights experts say, “Regardless of the lawfulness of the referendum, the Spanish authorities have a responsibility to respect those rights that are essential to democratic societies.”

The statement notes that authorities have searched printing establishments, seized referendum material, blocked websites, stopped political meetings and deployed more than 4,000 police officers to the Catalan region. They also express concern that leaders of the mass protests have been charged with sedition and about the arrest of politicians.

“The measures we are witnessing are worrying because they appear to violate fundamental individual rights, cutting off public information and the possibility of debate at a critical moment for Spain’s democracy,” the UN human rights experts say.

The experts, “called on the Spanish authorities to ensure that measures taken ahead of the Catalan referendum on 1 October do not interfere with the fundamental rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association, and public participation,” adding that they have been in contact with the Spanish government.

The experts are David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, a former U.S. state department official, and Alfred de Zayas, a UN independent expert on democracy and a U.S. lawyer.

Will polling stations open on Sunday?

More CBCNews

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ARMED Spanish military police have raided print shops in Catalonia looking for material related to the October 1 independence referendum.

They seized more than 100,000 posters in a dramatic day in which they also entered several newspaper offices, and warned editors they will face criminal charges if they publish referendum adverts in their papers or online.

As tensions rose in Catalan cities, judges also suspended political events there, in the Basque country and in Madrid. Thursday’s official launch of the indyref campaign, which attracted 9000 people, is also under formal investigation by prosecutors.

The raids came after the Spanish finance minister said the Madrid government would ensure that public money from the wealthy state was not used on the referendum.

Cristobal Montoro said central government would take over payments for essential services and would give Catalan officials 48 hours to comply with a new system of examining public payments to ensure public cash was not being used on what he called the “illegal vote”.

Montoro tried to justify the measures, saying they would ensure budgetary stability in Catalonia and would defend Spain’s legal order.

The measures would be implemented in two days if the cabinet of Catalan president Carles Puigdemont had not backed down from its referendum challenge.

Catalan mayors are also being summoned to court for supporting the vote, and they have been threatened with arrest if they do not comply.

Police have shut another indyref website after the official site was taken offline, although the Catalan government quickly opened a new one.

Despite this, international observers from a dozen countries continue to register to supervise the October 1 vote.

A group of Danish MPs yesterday wrote to the Spanish government expressing their “deep concern” for its latest actions and urging dialogue over the poll.

Earlier, Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy rejected a call by Catalan officials for negotiations on a poll, saying the law does not allow it.

Puigdemont and his cabinet, along with officials from the north-eastern state’s capital, Barcelona, wrote to Rajoy and King Felipe VI asking for fresh dialogue on holding the vote with Madrid’s permission.

Puigdemont and Barcelona mayor Ada Colau said Spain has launched “an offensive of repression without precedent”.

However, culture minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo said: “The prime minister can’t make something illegal into something legal.”

The central government said constitutional reform through a strong majority in the national parliament was the only avenue for a legal poll.

Madrid has rejected the unilateral vote planned for October 1, but separatist politicians launched the Yes campaign on Thursday as they press ahead with the campaign despite the threat of action by the country’s courts.

Joaquim Gómez Ribas, a Catalan journalist working in Scotland, told The National he thought the Catalan government would have contingency plans in place to ensure the poll goes ahead.

“I think the Catalan government had already thought this could happen and I think that it won’t affect the preparation for the referendum,” he said. “It is true that leaves much less capacity of movement to the Catalan government but they have already said that everything for the referendum is ready.

“The Catalan economy is based on a central tax collection made by the Spanish government who then sends money to the different autonomous communities to pay for basic services such as education, health or social services that are provided by the regional governments.

“The only difference now is that there is not going to be the intermediate state where the Catalan government intervene in where or what to spend the money on.”

He said that it was a further attack on the sovereignty of Catalonia, and added that it could backfire: “They are using fear as the only argument against independence, but I think this encourages more and more people to go to vote and to probably vote yes.”

“From what I sense in Catalan media, social media and friends and family, all these acts are just reaffirming the convictions of those who have decided to vote and vote yes, and it puts in a really difficult position those who still contend that the referendum and the Catalan government are the anti-democratic ones.”

In their letter, the Danish MPs said they do not understand why “there is no willingness [on the part of Madrid] to engage in a dialogue”.

They said: “In a democracy, threats and judiciary and legal responses are not the solution … Politicians, not judges or police forces, should primarily deal with political tensions in any European democratic country.”

The National

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For the sixth successive year, Catalonia’s national day – La Diada de Catalunya – was used as a political rally by the pro-independence movement. Organisers said 450,000 people had registered for the event, and Barcelona police later tweeted that 1 million turned up.

The Spanish government has vowed to stop the referendum going ahead on 1 October, but the Catalan regional government is refusing to back down and polls suggest a clear majority of people in the wealthy north-eastern region want to be allowed to vote.

Polls also show that Catalans are divided on whether they wish to secede from Spain. A survey at the end of July found that 49.4% of Catalans were against independence and 41.1% supported it.

The no campaigners were conspicuous by their absence in central Barcelona on Monday afternoon as the city’s sunny avenues filled with pro-independence estelada flags flown from balconies, worn as capes and displayed on T-shirts.

Stationed along the streets were Catalan police officers cradling pump-action shotguns and submachine guns – a reminder of the terrorist atrocities inflicted on Barcelona and the coastal town of Cambrils last month. But, despite the raw memories and the looming showdown with Madrid, the mood was light.

Vila said the Diada’s meaning and significance had shifted over recent years as the independence cause gained momentum. What was once a commemoration of the fall of Barcelona during the Spanish war of succession on 11 September 1714 was now a show of Catalan strength.

“It lets people show how much they want independence,” said Vila. “I think we have to be allowed to vote – but I also think the Spanish government is capable of anything when it comes to stopping the vote.”

At 5pm, after a minute’s silence for the victims of the terror attacks, the Catalan national anthem, Els Segadors, rang out along the boulevards as helicopters clattered above. Later, huge banners printed with the words pau (peace), sí and “referèndum és democràcia” made their way over the heads of the crowds.

Helena Casador, a 23-year-old student from Tarragona, had come to Barcelona with her friends Júlia and Inma. All three said the referendum needed to be held. “It’s about defending what we believe in, which is independence,” said Casador. “It will go ahead because people are prepared to defy the state. We did it before [in a symbolic referendum] on 9 November 2014, and we’ll do it again.”

The Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, was in a similarly defiant mood on Monday morning. Brushing aside the fact that Spain’s constitutional court has suspended the referendum legislation that was hastily passed in the Catalan parliament last week – and that prosecutors are looking into whether he and others ministers should be charged with disobedience and abuse of power – Puigdemont said there was not “enough power” to thwart the wishes of democratic Catalans.

“This Diada isn’t going to be like previous one because the self-determination referendum has been called for 1 October,” he said. “There are just 20 days to go.”

Raül Romeva, the Catalan foreign affairs minister, told reporters that the referendum had already begun, with expatriate Catalans voting by post.

“You need to remember that people are already voting,” he said. “The Catalan community abroad is already voting. Those people who say there’ll be no referendum forget that the referendum is already under way.”

In a speech to mark the Diada, Ada Colau, the mayor of Barcelona, criticised the Spanish government’s response to the referendum but pointed out that the Catalan government’s unilateral rush towards independence had “left out half the people of Catalonia”.

For Jordi Sala, a 41-year-old teacher from Reus who was wandering among the book stalls near the cathedral with an estelada hanging around his neck, 1 October was about simple democratic representation.

“It’s not about voting yes or voting no, it’s just about being able to vote democratically,” he said. “That said, I will be bit sad if the no camp wins.”

But how certain was he that the referendum would even take place? “My heart says the vote will go ahead but my head is a little more doubtful.”

The Guardian

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MADRID (Reuters) – Catalonia’s parliament voted on Wednesday to hold an independence referendum on Oct. 1, setting up a clash with the Spanish government that has vowed to stop what it says would be an illegal vote.

After 12 hours of often chaotic debate in the Barcelona parliament, a majority voted for the referendum and the legal framework to set up a new state, under which the assembly would declare independence within 48 hours of a “yes” vote.

Lawmakers who opposed independence abandoned the chamber before the vote, with some leaving Catalan flags in their empty seats. The winners, led by regional head Carles Puigdemont, sang the Catalan national anthem once the votes were counted.

“Committed to freedom and democracy! We push on!” Catalonia’s deputy governor, Oriol Junqueras, tweeted after the vote.

Polls in the northeastern region show support for self-rule waning as Spain’s economy improves. But the majority of Catalans do want the opportunity to vote on whether to split from Spain.

The government has asked the Spanish constitutional court to declare the referendum law void as soon as it is approved by the regional parliament. The Spanish constitution states that the country is indivisible.

“What is happening in the Catalan parliament is embarrassing, it’s shameful,” Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria told reporters.

The details of the referendum, which would pose the question “Do you want Catalonia to be an independent republic?” to all Spanish citizens living in Catalonia, were revealed amid a tense atmosphere in the 135-seat regional parliament.

“You will not split up Spain, but you are breaking up Catalonia,” Alejandro Fernandez of the ruling People’s Party (PP) told pro-independence lawmakers. “You’re putting social harmony at risk.”

The vote comes about three weeks after Barcelona and a nearby town were struck by Islamist attacks that killed 16 people and caused the Catalan and Spanish governments to present a brief united front.

Divisions reappeared as both sides squabbled over whether either could have prevented the attacks, and rallies against terrorism became politicized. Crowds in Barcelona booed Spain’s King Felipe when he visited for one march.

There will be no minimum turnout requirement to make the result of the referendum binding, Puigdemont said in a recent briefing. Ballot boxes, voting papers and an electoral census are at the ready, he said.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told a news conference on Monday the government would come down with all the force of the law to ensure no referendum would go ahead.

Courts have already suspended from office and leveled millions of euros in fines at Catalan politicians who organized a non-binding referendum in 2014, which returned a “yes” vote on a low turnout.

Additional reporting by Angus Berwick; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Robin Pomeroy

Reuters

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Horrific events like the Barcelona and Cambrils terror attacks now seem horribly familiar in the west (though worse examples are regular occurrences in the global south). But this time there was one unusual, and overlooked, factor: the territory that was targeted is the focus of a national dispute that could lead to secession.

Escalating tensions between the Spanish and Catalan governments over the latter’s “process” to create an independent republic are one reason why few people have adopted the national Spanish flag to exhibit solidarity with the recent victims – halting the pattern popularised in France after the assaults of 2015-16.

A referendum on independence has been called for 1 October by the Catalan parliament – fulfilling a pledge made by a majority of Catalan MPs. Despite Catalan wishes, the referendum will be unilateral; the Spanish government has vehemently opposed a bilateral vote, and it has also been prohibited by the courts.

This has caused much resentment: over 70% of Catalans back a referendum, and giant pro-sovereignty protests have been held for five successive years. The bitter mood intensified after revelations about the “dirty war” involving collusion between government, fraud officials and the media – and the barring from office of a former Catalan president and three colleagues.

While the roots of Thursday’s attacks lie elsewhere, the Galician writer Suso de Toro has posed the logical question of whether the time and location of the events – all occurring in Catalonia – were chosen to “rip the skin on a graze”. The last major Islamist attacks in Spain coincided with the 2004 general election that followed protests against Spanish support for the Iraq war – and were interpreted as having altered the course of that election.

At the very least, friction over the Catalan vote has shaped responses to the violence on the Ramblas. The police officers praised for killing six terrorists (regardless of whether this was required in all cases) belonged to the Catalan “Mossos”. Madrid had excluded the Mossos from Spanish and international security bodies – including Europol: something now seen as irresponsible, and the decision has been reversed.

The central role of the Mossos in the recent crisis has been received in different ways across Spain. While conservatives complain of Spanish police being “discriminated” against in investigations, other sources have applauded what Toro describes as “a state in practice”. Perhaps this praise is sincere – however grudging. More cynically, it could be calculated to encourage the Mossos to disobey political command and shut down the October poll. Spanish rightists have been agitating for this to happen.

There is a further – encouraging – way in which the grassroots origins of the independence process have surfaced in the past week: the dominant local responses have eschewed a security-centred reaction of the kind adopted by the French state, or the US after 9/11. The cries of “I am not afraid” filling Barcelona’s Plaça de Catalunya last Friday were incompatible with the politics of fear fuelling other conflicts in, and related to, the Muslim world. When a fascist group tried to hold an Islamophobic rally on the Ramblas they were ejected by a larger gathering of anti-fascists and locals. Anti-Muslim hate speech on social media has been overwhelmingly in Spanish, rather than Catalan.

There should be no downplaying of the potential for an Islamophobic backlash– witness the vicious graffiti daubed on mosques in the Catalan towns of Montblanc and Ripoll (as well as Granada and Seville). Yet one factor that could limit it is the liberal atmosphere fostered by an active, and largely leftwing, movement for independence. The progressive mood also benefited greatly from the mass indignados occupations of city squares in 2011, and the surprise victory in Barcelona of a new activist-led coalition in the 2015 municipal elections.

The dignified response of the people of Barcelona to last week’s terror was witnessed across Spain. This has the potential to will help to undermine widely held narratives of Catalan speakers as narrow-minded nationalists. It cannot be ruled out that as a consequence, an authoritarian state response to the referendum will now be politically more complicated.

However, some national divisions and related social and democratic questions have resurfaced. Madrid rapidly took steps to reach a new anti-terror agreement with parties from across Spain, and is attempting to turn Saturday’s peace march in Barcelona into a march for Spanish “unity” against a “common enemy” (a territorially limited initiative, bearing in mind that most victims were non-Spaniards).

Conversely, the effect of protests led by the pro-independence and anti-capitalist CUP party has been to relegate the Spanish monarch, King Felipe, and members of the Madrid cabinet from the head of the demonstration – to be replaced by public sector workers who rushed to help the victims. A CUP MP noted that the monarch and government have developed strong economic and personal ties with Gulf states that have funded Isis. “Bravo to the CUP,” was the reaction of one Spanish leftist, and we could add a “bravo” to the Catalan people for showing dignity in the face of adversity. Perhaps it really is time they were given the chance to run their own affairs.

Luke Stobart lectures in political economy at Birkbeck College, London. He writes on new politics in Spain, and migration in Catalonia and Europe. He has participated in the Indignados movement in Barcelona.

More: theguardian

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The credit crunch, which began when French bank BNP Paribas froze funds over US subprime mortgage sector fears, eventually plunged Spain into recession.

Old grievances among Catalans were revived, as secessionists argued that their wealthy region was being milked by incompetent governments in Madrid.

Now a very different kind of outside factor, jihadist violence, has returned to Spain, which last saw such carnage in the Madrid train bombings of 2004.

This time Catalonia was attacked, less than two months before its unrecognised referendum on independence.

While there is no suggestion Barcelona was targeted for any reason other than being Barcelona, could the attack become the wild card that gives the sovereignty game back to Madrid?

Because they clapped the king of Spain on Plaça de Catalunya?

Probably not.

When King Felipe and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy joined Catalan President Carles Puigdemont and Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau at a rally on the city’s central square, they were simply there to mourn.

“How could the king and the prime minister not travel to Barcelona?” says Manuel Arias-Maldonado, political scientist professor at Málaga University. “They had to go.”

For Adrià Alsina Leal, professor of journalism and communications at the Central University of Catalonia and a Catalan independence activist, “solidarity is welcome from wherever it comes”.

“It’s only normal that they came,” he says, noting the sense of “correctness and politeness” at the event. “I wouldn’t attach any other significance to that.”

“It could even be argued that circumstances have forced Puigdemont and Rajoy to show, albeit reluctantly, some unity of purpose,” Prof Arias-Maldonado suggests.

“There are, of course, minor details: Puigdemont’s references to the ‘Catalan character’ in his speech, Rajoy’s call to co-operate and leave behind what separates in the face of greater challenges.”

How long will the correctness last?

The tacit truce between Madrid and the secessionists may rapidly unravel after Sunday, when Catalonia’s three days of official mourning end.

Activists have suspended campaigning for that period, and I saw no sign of campaigning along Las Ramblas, beyond the occasional estelada (the unofficial lone-star flag of independence) in some of the shops.

But secessionists are indignant at how some of Spain’s biggest newspapers have used the attack against their cause.

For instance, an editorial in El País essentially argued that an attack of this magnitude should act as a reality check for Catalans and persuade them to set aside thoughts of independence.

“Using an editorial to sort of shame Catalan independence supporters like that was probably a bit over the top,” says Prof Leal.

However, the real battle for hearts and minds may be fought on social media.

Some secessionists, Prof Arias-Maldonado points out, are already praising the response of Catalan “state-like structures” as confirmation that Catalonia is ready for independence.

“Some are even advancing the idea that these things would not happen in a free Catalonia,” he says.

Prof Leal insists that he and fellow members of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), a non-party grassroots movement advocating the referendum and a Yes vote, are showing dignified restraint during the period of mourning.

However, when the campaign restarts, it will be visibly in tune with its democratic values.

On the other hand, he says: “We definitely need to go in a very micro-targeted way to all those people who might still be wondering whether to vote Yes or No or whether to vote at all.”

Why is everyone talking about the Catalan police?

Among the most extraordinary sights of the past few days was the outpouring of real love for Catalonia’s police. People applauded the Mossos in the street for their work in securing the region and tracking down the jihadists.

In a blistering polemic entitled Seven Hours Of Independence, Catalan writer Bernat Dedéu argues that the first response of Catalonia’s police and emergency services proved the region had “acted as an authentic power”.

He also makes the point that Spain has denied Catalan police direct access to European police databases, while granting it to police in the Basque region (however, change was already on the cards last month).

Nonetheless, the Catalan authorities’ handling of security before the attack is not above criticism.

Barcelona’s town hall rejected installing vehicle barriers at Las Ramblas, despite a recommendation from the Spanish interior ministry after the Berlin Christmas market attack, Prof Arias-Maldonado points out.

He also notes that the explosion at a house in Alcanar just before the attack was “misinterpreted as a drug-dealing event”.

“It is unclear why this happened and why this event was not followed by a tightening of the security,” he says.

“Still, perception is king and if public perception says that the Catalan police handled it well, it might help the secessionist case.”

How strong is the appetite for secession?

“It is hard to say,” says the political scientist from Málaga University.

“According to polls, secessionists are now around 41% of Catalans – numbers have been going down for some time. Around 49% are against it.

“These data come from the Catalan public polling body. How will the terrorist attack affect this situation? Who knows? But my bet is – not very much and if it does, it will reinforce the unionist side.

“Ultimately I don’t think the essence of the independence debate is going to change, because the underlying situation has not changed,” says Prof Leal.

When I put it to him that support for the cause of independence appears to be ebbing, he is sceptical about the polls and argues that the base is still strong.

“I don’t know anybody who was a supporter of independence who has stopped being a supporter of independence,” he says.

He speaks with the same passion I remember in November 2014, when we met during the heady week of Catalonia’s referendum dry run.

Nearly two million people voted, defying Madrid’s attempts to ban it, and 80% chose independence (according to Catalan figures).

But one thing has definitely changed since then: Spain’s economy is recovering.

That, for Prime Minister Rajoy, master of the long game, may yet be his best card.

For more on Barcelona after the attack, follow Patrick at @patrickgjackson

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The woman, from NSW, is in a Barcelona hospital in a serious but stable condition, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has confirmed.

The two young men, believed to be from Melbourne’s western suburbs, were also caught up in the deadly van rampage.

They have told Australian consular staff that they were injured, but have since returned to their hotel and plan to get medical treatment in the morning,

“They’re in direct contact with consular staff. They have advised they were directly affected,” Ms Bishop said.

She said consular officials were seeking more information on the woman who was hospitalised.

A woman, known only as Raelene, told Melbourne radio station 3AW that her son arrived in Barcelona to meet up with his friends only to discover they had been injured in the attack.

“He’s got to the hotel … and said to the lady, ‘I’m here to book a hotel next to my mates,” Raelene said.

“She said, ‘Your mates have been involved in a terrorist attack, they’re injured’.”

Meanwhile, Australian tourist Susan McLean has told of the horror that unfolded moments after a van ploughed into crowds.

Ms McLean was about 100 metres from the scene as the van zigzagged down one of the city’s busiest avenues, mowing down pedestrians and leaving bodies strewn across the ground.

“All of a sudden there was this tidal wave of people running from both Placa de Catalunya and Las Ramblas towards us screaming, crying and with absolute terror etched on their faces,” she told Channel Nine on Friday.

“Initially we couldn’t hear anything other than all these people running towards us. Several of them were calling ‘gun, gun’, so first of all we thought someone had been shot.

“Then they just kept sort of – it was all in Spanish. It was very difficult to understand but they were sort of pushing us into shops.”

Ms McLean, who was separated from her husband in the panic, said the scene reminded her of Melbourne’s January 20 Bourke Street tragedy, when a man in a car mowed down pedestrians. Six died and up to 30 were injured.

“That was quite scary because I wasn’t sure where he was but the shopkeepers were great. They pulled everyone inside and put the shutters down,” she said.

“My first reaction was the Bourke Street [rampage], because that is what it reminded me of, the vision of people fleeing in just such terror.”

Australian Gil Van Der Venne told 3AW he saw the attack unfold from his hotel balcony.

“We’re looking over the balcony … and there it is all happening in front of you,” he said.

“You hear this screaming, the mayhem.

“There was at least five bodies that I saw, at least three of them are still there now with body bags, so you’d imagine they’ve passed.

“The van, I believe, had probably travelled about three-quarters down Las Ramblas.”

Melbourne holidaymaker Julia Monaco told Channel Nine police on the scene suddenly ordered her and her family inside a shop just across from Las Ramblas as the attack happened.

“In a split second it all kind of changed and everyone just started running and panicking and running for their lives and crying and screaming and we were forced back into the store, told to get away from the windows and to get low on the ground.

“We were huddled at the very back of the store lying flat on if floor and were in that position for about 20 minutes with no real understanding of what was happening other than it was incredibly serious.”

– with AAP

More at The Age

Barcelona terror attack: What we know so far

Barcelona: 13 dead, two men arrested after van mows down pedestrians in Las Ramblas

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The poll also shows that in the hypothetical case of a Catalan parliamentary election, the pro-independence coalition Together for Yes (Junts pel Sí) would win again, with 60 to 63 seats (it currently has 62 seats after the 2015 election), followed by opposition party Ciutadans (C’s) with 20 to 22 seats (25 seats in last election). The third strongest party would be the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC), which would gain 17 to 20 seats (currently 16), Catalonia Yes We Can (CSQP) would also be one of the winners with 15 to 17 seats (currently 11) and the Catalan People’s Party (PPC)would get 11 to 13 seats (currently 11). However, the anti-capitalist CUP party would lose support, dropping from 10 to between six and eight seats.

As far the Spanish general election is concerned, from Catalonia the Catalan Left Republicans (ERC) would win the election to the Spanish Parliament (Congress) with 12 to 13 representatives gaining between three and four seats, followed by En Comú Podem, which would maintain their seats of between 11 to 12 (currently 12). Meanwhile, the Catalan Socialist Party would improve on its position ahead of PDeCAT with seven to nine seats (currently 7), while PDeCAT would drop from eight seats to six or seven. The Catalan People’s Party would get a similar result to last time with five to six seats (currently 6), and Ciutadans would most likely lose ground with its number of seats falling to between three and five seats (currently 5).

The poll was published on Friday and the results are available online in English in form of an abstract.

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