Spain has slammed the door 18 times to Catalonia’s referendum bid
DIPLOCAT – Since 2012, all efforts to agree on a vote requested by 80% of the population have been in vain
On January 2017, President of the Catalan Government, Carles Puigdemont, asked the Spanish government to allow the vote about the independence. It was a request with a predictable answer, and it was added to the 17 previous occasions on which the State rejected the right to decide since 2012, when it also rejected the fiscal pact. 18 slams of the door summarized here. They include meetings between presidents, propositions of law in the Congress and dialectic exchanges in sessions of control in the Congress and in the Senate.
1. The 18th and last Catalan attempt to negotiate a referendum with Madrid
The President of Catalonia visited Rajoy with the intention of reaching a political agreement
January 2017. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Catalan President Carles Puigdemont secret meeting at La Moncloa. Puigdemont transmitted the Catalan willingness to organize a referendum. Rajoy refused.
2. The negotiations for the investiture
The request of the PDC and ERC to facilitate a new Spanish government
The negotiations for the investiture of the new Spanish government have been the last stage in which the PDeCAT and ERC have called the State parties for opening the door to a referendum. It was the request that the former CiU party and the republicans made to the secretary general of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, for exploring an alternative majority with Podemos. It was rejected specifically by the Spanish socialists.
3. Puigdemont-Rajoy meeting
46 requests headed by the celebration of a referendum
The president of the Catalan Government debuted on the 20 April in the Moncloa delivering a document with 46 proposals for Catalonia to a Mariano Rajoy dug in his heels. The first one was the celebration of a referendum discarded by the Spanish government.
4. The unit of Spain
A debate switched on to use the failed legislature for the first time
The shortest legislature of the Spanish democracy made the debut with the PP and Ciudadanos competing with two motions to shield the unity of Spain, a debate that the secessionist groups used for claiming, again without success, a referendum.
5. The “no” of the Congress in the 9-N
“No” to the claim of the Parliament path of the consultation
One of the us more resounding “no” collected by the pro-independence parties was on 8 April 2014, when the Congress rejected with 299 votes the proposition of the Parliament -defended in the low chamber by CiU, ERC and ICV-EUiA- to transfer the competence to summon the consultation of the 9-N to the Catalan Government.
6. Cards crossed with Mas
An epistolary exchange with Rajoy and the same result
It took a month and a half, but finally in September 2013 Mariano Rajoy replied the letter sent by Artur Mas formally asking for a consultation. A request that the Spanish president dispatched calling for respect for the “Spanish legal framework”.
7, 8, 9, 10. Four resolutions per day
CiU, ERC and ICV-IU raises their profile before the 9-N
Before the Congress rejected the proposal of the Parliament, CiU, ERC and ICV-IU separately promoted three proposals of resolution to ask -with different accents- for the celebration of a consultation. All three were rejected in the plenary on 21 February 2013. Moreover, that same day the Congress said a fourth ‘no’, in this case to a proposition of Amaiur that asked the State to respect the call of referendums made by the autonomous communities.
11, 12, 13. Recurrent debate to the plenary
The usual question to the sessions of control in Madrid
Beyond the parliamentary initiatives, the defence of the right to decide from ERC, the PDeCAT and groups like Amaiur has been frequent in the sessions during the session of control to Rajoy in the Congress as well as in the Senate. Requests ignored or rejected by the popular leader. According to an internal recount of ERC, Alfred Bosch unsuccessfully attempted on two occasions – 2 July 2013 and 31 October 2012- that Rajoy accepted the right to decide. Also Ester Capella, in a session of control in the Senate, bumped pinto the rejection of the Spanish government on 18 June 2013.
14, 15. Two parliamentary questions
Amaiur collects a double refusal of the Spanish government
Not only has the Catalan pro-independence movement attempted to change the opinion of the Spanish government about the referendums of self-determination. On 20 November 2012, Amaiur saw how the executive of Mariano Rajoy appealed to the Constitution to reject to allow territorial referendums on self-determination: he made two questions related to the subject and they replied to both of them along the same lines.
16. The popular consultations
Another frustrated way for the “no” of the Congress to the cession
On 9 October 2012, ERC promoted without success a proposal so that the Spanish government transferred the competence to the Catalan Government in order to summon popular consultations. The Congress refused it with the votes of PP, PSOE, UPyD, FAC and UPN.
17. The consultative referendums
A proposition promoted by ERC, BNG, Amaiur and IU-ICV
Before, on 24 July 2012, the low chamber had turned also a proposition of law promoted by ERC, BNG, Amaiur and IU-ICV to authorize the call of consultative referendums. In this case it obtained the negative votes of PP, UPyD, FAC and UPN.
18. The self-determination
A proposition of law that is not even admitted for processing
A proposition of law of ERC, BNG and Amaiur on 13 February 2013 on the right to self-determination of the peoples was even less successful. The board of the Congress did not even admit it for processing.
