ANC urges Parliament to call a binding referendum on independence this autumn

The pro-independence grass-roots organisation Catalan National Assembly (ANC) urged the Catalan Parliament to call a binding unilateral referendum on independence this autumn. ‘This is the petition of the ANC to the institutions’, said the president of this civil society group, Jordi Sánchez, pointing out that in autumn Parliament will ‘probably’ be in a position to organise the vote.  For Sánchez, if a vote is called from Parliament, the process will enter a ‘point of no return’. ‘We either start to complete this process (towards independence) or it will finish us off’, he said, admitting a certain fatigue amongst pro-independence groups. The ANC, together with Omnium Cultural and other civil society organisations in Catalonia, have been organising for years massive pro-independence demonstrations every 11th of September, the Catalan National Day. In 2013, for example, they did a human chain from north to south of the country inspired in the Baltic Way, and in the last two years more than 1.5 million people demonstrated in Barcelona. The ANC is planning a new rally in 2016, this time with five different events across Catalonia.

‘It is not only that we have been doing this for a long time, it’s also that we have done everything!’, admitted Sánchez, saying that Catalans have ‘earned’ the right to vote about their political future in a referendum. The ANC president stated that pro-independence supporters and the Catalan Government have asked the Spanish government in numerous occasions to agree on a referendum, but their calls have always fallen in deaf ears. ‘We have acted in a united and determined way. It’s hard to imagine what else we could do. We just need one last thing: determination to finish the process towards independence’, despite the frontal opposition coming from Madrid, he said.

According to Sánchez, pro-independence groups tend to worry too much, thinking that they do not have enough supports amongst Catalans, something that he considers to be totally wrong. ‘We need to trust in ourselves’, he said. ‘With trust and unity we will achieve our goal of a new Catalan Republic’, he added. Sánchez asked the left-wing coalition ‘Catalunya Sí que es Pot’ (which includes the Catalan branch of Podemos and Green-socialists ICV) to support a unilateral referendum. ‘You should not be afraid of democracy’, he said, urging them to ‘disobey’ the ban to vote on independence, thus defending the right of self-determination as they do with social rights that are being threatened by the economic crisis.

Sánchez urged Catalans that support independence to take to the streets again this 11^th of September. ‘We need to show that we keep the mobilisation alive’, he pointed out. So far, the Spanish government has refused all calls to negotiate a referendum, and that’s why the pro-independence groups urge the Catalan Parliament to call it unilaterally. The Spanish government has challenged all Catalan plans aimed at calling a referendum or declaring independence in the Constitutional Court, and the President of the Catalan Parliament, former ANC President Carme Forcadell, might be even suspended. ‘We are behind you whatever happens, do not let us down’, said Sánchez to the Catalan leaders, urging them to stay in their posts even if the Spanish judiciary forces them to leave for promoting independence.