Next steps on the pro-independence roadmap put to vote, despite TC’s claims of illegality

The conclusions of the Committee to Study the Constitutive Process, which included the possibility to debate on a unilateral referendum on independence in Catalonia, have been included in this Wednesday’s agenda. Thus, the Parliament decided to put these points to vote in spite of the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC), which claimed that some of the next steps on the pro-independence roadmap put forward by the Committee and emerged from the 9-N agreed proposal, were illegal. Representatives from the pro-independence forces, governing cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ and radical left CUP stated that they are due to the democratic mandate emerged from the 27-S elections. ‘We are not doing anything illegal’ stated Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, considered and considered it ‘absolutely normal’ for the Parliament to discuss the conclusions.

Spanish Unionist ‘Ciutadans’, the main party in the opposition, voted against including the Committee’s conclusions to the Parliament’s agenda, same as Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) and Conservative People’s Party (PP). Alternative left alliance, ‘Catalunya Sí que es Pot’ abstained from voting. The parties which opposed the decisión claimed that the vote was ‘against the law’ and urged the Parliament’s President, Carme Frocadell, to impede it.

However, Forcadell stated that it was not for the Parliament’s Bureau to obstaculise the agenda and emphasised that the Catalan Chamber ‘is sovereign’ and therefore ‘it is beyond’ the Parliament’s Bureau and its President.

On his part, the pro-independence MPs from ‘Junts Pel Sí’ and CUP assured that they were ‘not afraid’ of the TC and that they were committed to follow the 27-S democratic mandate.

Puigdemont: ‘We are not doing anything illegal’
Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont considered it ‘absolutely normal’ for the Parliament to include the conclusions of the Committee to Study the Constitutive Process in this Wednesday’s agenda. ‘We are not doing anything illegal, this Chamber makes laws and it is absolutely legitimated’, he stated. He considered it ‘from Mars’ to question that the Parliament could pass a document which has been discussed in a working group. ‘For a Parliament to pass conclusions of a Committee it is not a democratic exceptionality, it is perfectly normal’, he added.