Puigdemont to call for a referendum in September 2017 if Spain doesn’t allow Catalans to vote

Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, emphasised the Government’s will to culminate Catalonia’s pro-independence by holding a binding referendum. ‘It’s either referendum or referendum’, he stated before the Parliament during the first phase of the vote of confidence and forecasted that the vote will take place ‘on the second fortnight of September’. According to Puigdemont, the offer to hold an agreed referendum with Spain on Catalonia’s independence ‘doesn’t expire but won’t paralyse us either’. The Catalan President called to start ‘a chain of confidence which will not end tomorrow [when the vote of confidence will take place] but continue until Catalonia becomes an independent country’. ‘I hope that in the moments of maximum discrepancy we will be loyal to the Catalans’ mandate’, he stated indirectly addressing radical left pro-independence CUP. In this vein, he warned those who won’t support the budget for 2017 not to support him and ‘avoid further wastes of time’.

Puigdemont assured that ‘there is a new opportunity for the Spanish State to recognise Catalonia and overcome this deadlock’ an insisted on his will to ‘discuss on the date, the question and the required results’. However, he also warned that if this option doesn’t get through, he will ‘entrust Catalan Vice President, Oriol Junqueras and Catalan Minister for Foreign Affairs, Transparency and Participation, Raül Romeva, to start designing the referendum’. Thus, Puigdemont made clear that the Government’s will to collaborate with the Spanish state continues but ‘the commitment with the Catalans’ mandate emerged from the 27-S elections and with this term of office timings continues’. ‘This is an offer which doesn’t expire but won’t paralyse us either’.

However, Puigdemont warned that before calling for a referendum it is necessary ‘to overcome the hurdle of confidence’ otherwise he will ‘call for new elections’.