The Bureau of Parliament will debate this Tuesday the admission to processing of a popular legislative initiative (ILP) which aims to declare the independence of Catalonia. It is a bill that was registered in the Catalan Chamber on February 2 by three members of the management of the extra-parliamentary political formation Solidaritat Catalana per la Independencia, Lluís Tenas, David Folch and Francesc Fíguls.
For now, Junts has not decided its vote and ERC is avoiding revealing what they will do at Tuesday’s meeting. Of the pro-independence ranks, only the CUP has confirmed that it will support the initiative since its doctrine is to always position itself in favor of this type of initiative. The PSC, for its part, distances itself from the initiative and hides behind the fact that there is a legal report that supports its non-admission for processing. According to sources consulted, this ILP is not admitted for processing since the initiatives “must deal with issues in which the Generalitat has jurisdiction.” Whenever an ILP arrives at the Chamber, the lawyers have to speak out to assess whether they comply with the requirements stipulated by the law.
From Ciudadanos, a few days after said law was registered, it was already warned that if the governing body of the institution processes the proposal they would go to court. Yesterday the leader of the oranges, Carlos Carrizosa, reiterated his intention to go to justice, before knowing what the members of the Board will do, focusing these warnings on the president of the Chamber, Anna Erra. Vox, in turn, warns that “it will use all legal means against the Parliamentary Board if it admits the ILP for the declaration of independence of Catalonia to be processed.”
In the event that the ILP is processed, the promoters should begin a process of collecting signatures, until reaching the necessary 50,000, before the proposal is addressed in plenary session, which in its articles provides for providing the Government of the Generalitat with powers so that it can negotiate independence with the international community and that secession can be approved in Parliament.
In the previous legislature, in 2019, with Roger Torrent as president of the Parliament, the Board already debated the processing of an ILP with a similar intention that was rejected thanks to the abstention of ERC.
That rule, unlike the one that was registered in February, according to parliamentary sources, had clear flaws from the start. That initiative was registered by Unitat per la Independència and caused a scuffle between republicans and post-convergents.
Solidaritat, the promoting party, had four deputies in the Parliament in the legislature that lasted from 2010 to 2012, the first in which Artur Mas was president. Among its deputies was the now president of Barça, Joan Laporta (since 2021), who had already presided over the Barça entity in a first stage, between 2003 and 2010.
In addition to Laporta, in that legislature there were also the jurist Alfons López Tena and the now member of the leadership of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) Uriel Bertran. Laporta finished the legislature outside the Solidaritat subgroup, as a non-attached deputy and was also a councilor in Barcelona City Council from 2011 to 2015.
Catalan Solidarity for Independence joined the JxCat lists in the last parliamentary elections, in February 2021.
This initiative is very similar to one that Solidaritat presented and that was debated in the Parliament in April 2011, but then it did not have to pass any prior filter as happens with the ILPs and the political context is different.
Sovereignist sources consulted see this initiative as “a trap” and as an untimely proposal due to the political moment, while the amnesty is being negotiated, and with the independence movement divided in the Parliament. Although it is processed in the Table, it would not go ahead in the plenary session, these sources consider.
