The Government plans to appeal to the Constitutional Court (TC) the decision of the Parliamentary Board that on February 20 admitted for processing a popular legislative initiative in favor of the independence of Catalonia. The Council of Ministers this Tuesday plans to approve this appeal, once it receives the report commissioned in this regard from the Council of State, as El Mundo has reported and Moncloa sources have confirmed to La Vanguardia. Challenging this decision of the Parliament’s Board could thus lead to its suspension, already in the middle of the pre-campaign for the Catalan elections on May 12.
The popular legislative initiative (ILP) was registered in the Parliament by Solidaritat Catalana per la Independencia, and prospered thanks to the favorable votes in the Table of Junts and the CUP, the abstention of Esquerra Republicana and the contrary vote of the PSC, all in full negotiations on the Amnesty law proposal, finally approved in Congress on March 14. The proposal had, however, a non-binding report from the Parliament’s lawyers, which in any case warned that it could exceed its powers.
And this is also understood by the central Executive, which is now determined to appeal this decision of the Board before the TC.
“We were clear: we did not like, politically or in any case, that proposal,” the spokesperson for the PSOE executive, Esther Peña, said this Monday on TVE, regarding the initiative in favor of the independence of Catalonia admitted for processing. . “In addition, the Parliament’s own lawyers have confirmed different reports to the contrary,” she highlighted, regarding the decision of the Board.
Neither independence nor a self-determination referendum in Catalonia. Peña has also flatly denied that the socialists are negotiating any illegal consultation, in his talks with Junts and ERC, now in any case paralyzed until after the Catalan elections of 12-M. “I will be categorical: the PSOE is not in any negotiation that talks about ruptures, referendums and divisions,” stated Ferraz’s spokesperson, in response to the statements of the general secretary of Esquerra, Marta Rovira, in which she assured that They are negotiating with the socialists the terms of a referendum.
Peña has pointed out that the agenda of the Government and the PSOE in recent years in Catalonia only supports “normalization policies” to dilute the political conflict, with initiatives such as amnesty or pardons. “The PSOE will never, ever find us in formulas that divide,” she stressed. A self-determination referendum, therefore, “is neither on the table nor is it our will,” she stressed. Another thing, he has admitted in reference to the demands of the pro-independence formations, is that “we cannot make the parties renounce their political maxims, it would be necessary, this is a consolidated democracy.”
“But one thing is that we share different agreements for that objective of normalization between Spain and Catalonia, and coexistence, and another thing is that each party has its position,” the socialist leader alleged. “The PSOE’s statement is clear and clear: we do not opt, neither now nor in the future, for options that divide society, in any case,” she stressed.
Ferraz’s spokesperson has framed these maximum positions of ERC or Junts, precisely, in the context of the imminent electoral campaign in Catalonia. “We must understand that we are in a pre-electoral period, where there are maximum positions and we are aware that between Esquerra and Junts there is now a battle on their side to see who is more pro-independence or more maximalist in their positions,” she alleged. Positions that she has insisted are not shared by socialists, “neither in substance nor in form.” But Junts and ERC “have every right to expose it.”
