Academics for and against the referendum: the names of Aragonès for the clarity agreement

Pere Aragonès will meet the table of Catalan parties to discuss the clarity agreement after the municipal elections, but until that moment arrives the president wants to have the academic council ready that should guide and shape a clarity agreement that lays the foundations for a Catalan proposal for an agreed referendum on independence. So the Government has announced today that it has set up this committee of experts. There are nine names that cover both the sovereignist sphere and the one contrary to a separation.

This council will be part of the Department of the Presidency, led by Laura Vilagrà, and will be made up of Mar Aguilera Vacara, professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Barcelona; Eva Anduiza Perea, professor of Political Science at the UAB; Marco Aparicio Wilhelmi, professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Girona; Astrid Barrio López, professor of Political Science at the University of Valencia; Pau Bossacoma Busquets, professor of Law and Political Science Studies at the UOC; Elisenda Casañas Adam, professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Edinburgh; Lesley-Ann Daniels, researcher at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies (IBEI); Josep Lluís Martí Màrmol, professor of Philosophy of Law and Politics at the UPF, and the Lecturer in Political Theory at the UPF, Marc Sanjaume-Calvet, who will be the president and who will coordinate this group.

According to the Government, the members of the council will have the right to receive remuneration for attending the sessions held by the body. The first of the meetings will be tomorrow, at 4:00 p.m., with the presence of Aragonès, as reported by the spokesperson for the Government, Patrícia Plaja, at the press conference this afternoon after the usual meeting of the Government on Tuesdays.

The work of the academics will begin when the Government sends them a series of questions about the mechanisms that should govern an independence process. Aragonès announced last week that he would be around half a dozen issues, so that the nine members of the council prepare a first report.

This document will open the turn of three different debates: one around the table of Catalan parties that the president of the Generalitat wants, a debate with associations and entities of all kinds, and another among non-organized citizens. The council will collect all the conclusions to prepare a final report on the clarity agreement at the end of this year or at the beginning of 2024 and that the Government, which reserves the possibility of modifications and open questions, will send to Moncloa, “whoever be in the government.”

Plaja has defended the dialogue path and has stated that this process seeks to demonstrate that there is a “broad social consensus” to decide the political future of Catalonia. Once a proposal has been obtained, the Government undertakes to defend the agreement of clarity with the final objective that Catalonia “return to vote and decide its political future” with the recognition of all parties.

The main function that the Council will have will be to issue the corresponding reports on the result of the questions formulated by the President of the Generalitat and the Government for the elaboration of the clarity agreement, and on the result of the political, social and citizen debates, in order to for the Executive to prepare and approve the final proposal that will be submitted to the Spanish State.

The first document prepared by the council will be available to all citizens and will serve as a basis to guide the political, social and citizen debate that will begin before the summer.