Spanish Constitutional Court suspends pro-independence roadmap

Catalonia’s pro-independence roadmap, ratified last week by the Parliament, has been suspended by the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC). The magistrates met this Monday as a matter of urgency and decided to accept the Spanish government appeal, which claimed that the conclusions of the Committee to Study the Constitutive Process, the group responsible for designing Catalonia’s strategy towards independence, violated the Spanish Constitution. The Catalan Chamber will now have 20 days to communicate the TC’s decision to its members and present the eventual appeals. By the end of August the TC will decide if it will apply prison charges to the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell.

The 72 pro-independence MPs in the Catalan Chamber, those from governing cross-party list ‘Junts Pel Sí’ and radical left CUP have expressed their solidarity with Forcadell and insisted that the decision to pass the conclusions of the Committee to Study the Constitutive Process was not hers but the democratic and majoritarian will of Catalans. The Catalan President, Carles Puigdemont, also admitted to being co-responsible for the task to drive Catalonia to the gates of independence and showed his support for Forcadell on Twitter.

‘We know what we are here for and we are absolutely aware of the consequences that this may have’, stated Catalan Minister for Foreign Affairs, Raül Romeva, in an interview with 324 channel this Monday. He also lamented that whereas in Catalonia the political decisions are taken in the Parliament, in Spain these responsibilities ‘lie with the TC’. Romeva considered this fact to be ‘upsetting’ and to ‘reinforce Catalonia’s need for independence’ and emphasised that pro-independence supporters, the Catalan Government and the Parliament are ‘subject to all types of threats, attacks and insults’ but insisted that this ‘won’t stop’ them.