28.07.2016 - 00:28
The separatist movement in Catalonia’s parliament has escalated its battle with Madrid after it defied Spain’s constitutional court by debating a controversial pro-independence roadmap, and the region’s president announced a confidence vote to consolidate the move towards sovereignty.
The angry, last-minute debate – in which the pro-independence Together for Yes coalition and the smaller, far-left Popular Unity Candidacy secured approval for the unilateral disconnection plan by 72 votes to 11 – represents another open challenge to the Spanish judiciary and to Spain’s acting prime minister, Mariano Rajoy.
It also provoked a furious reaction in the Catalan parliament from Ciudadanos and Popular party MPs who left the chamber rather than take part in a vote they described as “illegal” and flagrantly undemocratic. One Ciudadanos MP accused the separatist faction of “wanting to take us not only out of Spain and the EU, but out of the 21st century and modern democracy”.
However, the president of the Catalan parliament, Together for Yes’s Carme Forcadell, insisted the parliament was exercising its sovereign rights.
Earlier on Wednesday, the pro-separatist Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, said a confidence vote would be held in parliament on 28 September to help bring the region to “the gates of independence”.
Last November, the Catalan parliament voted to begin the process of breaking away from Spain after separatist MPs used their majority to pass legislation to effect a “disconnection from the Spanish state” and pave the way for an independent Catalan state.
Spain’s constitutional court responded by unanimously ruling that the legislation had ignored and infringed the rules of the 1978 constitution, adding that the “principle of democracy cannot be considered to be separate from the unconditional primacy of the constitution”.
Rajoy hailed the court’s decision as a victory for “the majority of Spaniards who believe in Spain, in national sovereignty and in the equality of all”.
Spain’s acting deputy prime minister said the behaviour of the Catalan parliament would not be tolerated, adding that a cabinet meeting on Friday would authorise the government’s legal team to file a challenge with the constitutional court.
“The government said that we would not let allow any steps to be taken,” said Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría. “Yet today another very serious and obstinate one has been taken, one that infringes the right of all Spaniards to decide their constitutional framework. The government has said it will act, has been acting and will act.”
Pedro Sánchez, the leader of Spain’s socialist party, said the Catalan parliament’s decision was “extraordinarily serious” and had disregarded the rulings of the constitutional court.
He added: “No one has the right to put institutions beyond the law. These decisions violate the constitution and Catalonia’s statutes.”
The issue of Catalan independence remains bitterly divisive in both Spain and within the region itself. A recent poll suggested that 47.7% of Catalans are in favour of separating from Spain, while 42.4% were against it, with 8.3% undecided.
More: The Guardian
