Between the 29th and 31st of May, the Cercle
d'Economia business and economics lobby and think tank is carrying out
its debate days, which take place each year at the coastal Catalan town
of Sitges, some 30 minutes drive from Barcelona. This event is one of
the main get-togethers of the business elite and economics academia at
Spanish level, with the presence of CEOs, business association leaders,
Spanish and Catalan Ministers, as well as academic experts. This year,
Catalonia's self-determination and its independence vote is at the
centre of the debate.
"Give dialogue a second chance"
At the opening session on Thursday, the President of the
Cercled'Economia, the veteran Economics Chair at the Universitat de
Barcelona (UB), Anton Costas, asked the President of the Catalan
Government and CiU leader, Artur Mas, "to give dialogue a second chance"
in order to find a negotiated way out of the current "Catalan problem",
"which is also a Spanish problem", he added. Costas insisted that
"political time" can be created and rejected the idea that it is now too
late to talk. He declined to represent the so-called "third way", which
are those opposing independence but also promoting a change of the
current status quo in order to find a better accommodation of Catalonia
within Spain. However, his arguments were all pointing towards this way
out of the problem. Costas stated that a consultation vote "is valid",
"if it always respects the legal framework" and people are well
"informed" about the consequences of their vote. In this sense, he was
supporting such a vote previously negotiated within Spain. However, for
this, "dialogue" deserves "a second chance" and this might involve the
modification of the Constitution, he added.
The Spanish Government is mostly responsible for the uncertainties of Catalonia's self-determination
The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, was chairing the
opening session and he replied to Costas. Mas repeated that he is
willing to talk, as he has already said on many occasions. However, he
also pointed out that the Spanish Government is not willing to talk and
is aiming to block the self-determination vote. In this vein, the
Catalan President asked the Spanish PM "not to block the consultation
vote carried out according to a law from the Catalan Parliament, if they
are not able to negotiate such a vote with us". Mas asked Rajoy not to
"mind in our own business". The Catalan President also recognised that
the self-determination process is creating "uncertainties", although
these uncertainties are created by how the Spanish Government is dealing
with the issue. According to Mas, if the Spanish Executive was acting
like the British Government and negotiating a self-determination vote
and talking on an agreed way out of the current conflict, then
uncertainties would have been considerably reduced. However, he also
admitted that "there is also a certain degree of uncertainty in the
complicated and complex decisions".
The PSOE want to negotiate the Constitutional Reform with the PP and the CiU
On Friday, the Secretary General of the PSOE, Alfredo Pérez
Rubalcaba, insisted once again on his party proposal to reform the
Constitution in order to develop a true federal Spain. In this new
territorial model, Catalonia should find a better accommodation and
should have its powers of self-government fully respected. According to
Rubalcaba, this reform should be negotiated between the PSOE, the
governing PP and the CiU, which runs the Catalan Government.
However the PSOE's Constitutional Reform would not recognise
Catalonia's right to self-determination nor its nationhood status,
meaning that Spain would not be fully recognised as a pluri-national
State (such as the United Kingdom, for instance). Currently the
Constitution negotiated with the Franco regime states that Spain is
"formed of nationalities and regions", without mentioning them. The word
"nationality" was a concession to the military and Spanish nationalists
controlling power in order not to put in black on white that Spain was a
pluri-national State and that besides the Spanish nation there was the
Catalan and the Basque. This concession was done in order not to derail
the democratisation process, with the implicit promise that once
democracy had been consolidated, Spain would slowly recognise itself as a
pluri-national state and Catalonia would have its nationhood status
fully recognised. However, this never happened. In fact, the contrary
happened, and now the PSOE is insisting on not recognising Catalonia's
nationhood, knowing this hits Spanish nationalist voters and that the PP
would not accept it.
The CiU replies that it is the PP and the Spanish Government who do not want to talk
Next to Rubalcaba sat the 'number 2' of the CiU and its Spokesperson
in the Spanish Parliament, Josep Antoni Duran i Lleida. Duran i Lleida
stated that "President Mas totally agrees on sitting [around a
negotiating table] and talking amongst everyone", referring to talking
about negotiating a Constitutional Reform. At this point, Duran i Lleida
emphasised that "the problem is that some people have no interest at
all in talking. "This is the problem", he added, referring to the PP and
the Spanish Government. He also insisted that the CiU has stressed its
will to talk on many different occasions and to many different people.
"We have said this, in many different ways, to the Spanish Prime
Minister and to you [Pérez Rubalcaba] as well", he added. However, "it
is the Spanish PM – who has a greater responsibility – who is the one
who has to sit and talk" concluded Duran i Lleida.
In addition, the CiU's 'number 2' also warned against a poor
Constitutional Reform, reproducing the generalisation of the Autonomous
Communities model to solve Catalonia's singularity. "This road might be
too broad for some and too thin for Catalonia", he said. Furthermore,
Duran i Lleida – who personally opposes independence but defends
Catalonia's right to decide on its own future – warned that a Federal
Constitutional Reform not recognising Catalonia's nationhood and
specificities would be a failure. "I do not want to leave Spain, but I
do not want to stay at the price of deforming my personality, which is
what is happening lately ", said the CiU's Spokesperson at the Spanish
Parliament.
The Spanish Government closes the door to negotiating and asks Mas to abandon self-determination plans
Before all those messages, after the weekly Cabinet meeting, the
Spanish Deputy-Prime Minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, once again
closed the door to a Constitutional Reform, as the Spanish Government
and the PP have already done on several occasions. "There is no
consensus", according to them. Since the PP holds an absolute majority
in the Spanish Parliament with 53% of the sitting MPs and the PSOE has
31% of the MPs, both parties currently control around 85% of the
parliamentary seats. A Constitutional Reform could only pass if the PP
and PSOE reached an agreement, but the PP believes "there is no
consensus". In 2011, the Spanish Constitution was reformed in less than a
month to introduce limitations to the levels of public debt and
deficit, following instructions from the EU institutions and foreign
governments such as that of Germany. The Spanish Deputy-PM also
criticised the Catalan President for insisting "every single day" upon
the self-determination vote and "creating confusion", since the vote
will never take place, according to her.
