Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy immediately and unequivocally rejected Catalonia’s secession resolution.
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The regional parliament of Catalonia launched a plan Monday to set up a road map for independence from Spain by 2017, defying warnings from the central government in Madrid that it is violating the nation’s constitution. Catalonia’s regional government, based in Barcelona, passed the motion by 72 votes to 63. “While you are spending your time and efforts to break up Catalonia from the rest of Spain, 600,000 Catalans go out on the street every day to look for work”, he said, referring to pro-independence lawmakers.
Mr. Rajoy’s government has said it would petition the Constitutional Court this week to have the resolution declared void.
The constitutional Court is expected to rule the law illegal quickly, but the motion specifically orders the regional government not to heed the decision of Spain’s highest court. Spain’s prime minister is filing an immediate appeal to the constitutional court. The turnout was reported at 37%, of which more than 80% voted in favor of independence.
It also declares the beginning of the state creation process and calls for an “open, inclusive and active constituent civil process aimed at building a foundation for the future Catalan constitution”. But this declaration says that from now on Catalonia won’t be legally bound by any Spanish institutions. Mr. Azaga adds that Mr. Rajoy must now respond much more definitively and forcefully to the independence movement. Catalan separatists threaten to “disobey” the decision of Madrid’s court.
A slim majority of Catalans were not in favour independence, according to the results of a poll carried out by Spanish survey-compiler Metroscopia on 30 October, Alberto Gallo, head of macro research at RBS said in a research note e-mailed to clients on Monday afternoon.
However, they still have to form a government, amid disagreement on who who should preside. “With this resolution, we are solemnly kicking off the construction of a state”, Raul Romeva of the pro-independence Together for Yes coalition told regional lawmakers.
Press TV has talked to Alexander Azadgan, a professor of Strategic Global Management and worldwide Political Economy from Tehran, and Lajos Szaszdi, a political commentator from San Juan, about Catalonia’s potential independence from Spain and its impacts on Europe’s future.
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Catalan secessionists said that they have tried to discuss independence with the government, but they have been blocked by unionist parties.
