The very same day Messrs. Cameron and Salmond sealed the institutional
pact for the Scottish referendum, Spain was condemned by the European Court of
Human Rights (this time for not looking into evidence of torture of Basque journalist
Martxelo Otamendi, arrested and imprisoned under anti-terrorist legislation,
and later cleared of all charges), and in Catalonia the execution of the
President of the Catalan government in 1940 was commemorated one more year.
On October 15, 1940, after a summary court martial typical of the
Spanish Civil War, Lluís Companys, the last president of the Republican
Generalitat, the democratic government of Catalonia, arrested by the Gestapo in
France and delivered to the Franco regime, was put before a firing squad in
Barcelona and shot. Companys is the only democratically elected leader to have
been executed in Europe in the twentieth century and is the prime symbol of the
persecution by the Franco dictatorship of the Catalan republicans. Until now, the
Spanish state -whose subsidies still maintain a foundation established in
remembrance of Franco and his ideology- has repeatedly refused to declare the
trial null and void, and has refused to vindicate the historical memory of all
the victims of those years.
On the very same day Messrs. Cameron and Salmond initialled the
agreement, Spain was again convicted in a human rights case and the Catalans
memorialised the execution of our President, a whole constellation of
government appointees in Madrid threatened to use the force of law against any
attempt by Catalonia to hold a consultation on the will of its people to
constitute a new European state.
On September 11 -Catalonia's National Day- almost one and a half million
people packed the centre of Barcelona demanding just that, that Catalonia become a new state in Europe.
Since then, a lot has happened: the calling of early elections to the
Parliament of Catalonia, the assumption by the ruling party of the popular demand
-already taken on board by other parliamentary forces-, the coincidence of all
opinion poll findings that a majority of people want a referendum and that the
parties include it in their programs -parties which, in addition, go from
center-right to left...
Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy's government response was unchanged: the
refusal to discuss the issue, and menacing any
process of decision-making by the people. And the stoking of fear: from
insisting that an independent Catalonia would be excluded from the European
Union -denied or redressed by Brussels- to nonsense such as the
incomprehensible claim that all college degrees would no longer be valid. And
other deeds that continue to show, for many Catalans, that sovereignty is the
best way: the Spanish budget failing once again to include the degree of
investment in Catalonia that would correspond to Catalonia's tax contribution
and its share in overall GDP, the education minister saying that his goal is to
"hispanicise" Catalan students (i.e. disparaging their own language,
history and culture) …
But above all, the current dialectic focuses on whether or not the
citizens of Catalonia can express themselves freely and democratically on their
future. Wielding the Spanish Constitution -which does not deny referendums, but
says they can only be called by the state- and all its legality, Mr. Rajoy's
party has even said that calling the
Catalan consultation would be criminal and that the authorities doing so would
have to be prosecuted and imprisoned.
That very same day …
For the whole of Europe, this is the litmus test for the Catalan
proposition: Can a politically defined and recognised collective of citizens be
prevented from expressing their will at the ballot box today, well into the
21st century? Can anyone prevent a democratically elected Parliament and
Government from doing their duty of consulting their people upon a crucial
issue for the future of their society, a consultation the people claim
peacefully? Can anyone outlaw the exercise of democracy? Can the European Union
afford it?
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Josep Bargalló Valls @JosepBargallo
First Minister and Minister of the Presidency of Catalonia 2004-2006
Minister of Education of Catalonia 2003-2004
Councillor in Torredembarra Town Council (1995-2003)
From 2010 he is Professor at the University Rovira i Virgili
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We are asking the European Union to consider the following:
That the Catalans who peacefully and joyfully demonstrated on September 11, 2012 represent a call by a people wanting the opportunity to exercise their right to decide their future. That this opportunity to decide should not only be a basic right, but that it is a right that is certainly IN LINE with the most founding principles of this European Union.
That the reasons the Spanish State is giving for standing in opposition to this request to exercise a right to choose are based on a set of written laws and on several dubious interpretations of those laws. That if these laws and interpretations are being used as excuses against a people's voice who are only asking for an an opportunity to decide their future, then this process of denial is certainly AGAINST the most founding principles of this European Union.
Exercising the right to decide one's future may be a complicated process of evaluating priorities and consequences; HOWEVER evaluating and deciding between the two contrasting concepts above should seem clear enough to any balanced and democratic society. As a result, it should also be clear enough for the European Union to evaluate and recognize the former as belonging clearly to themselves and the latter as being apart and distant from what they stand for.
We only ask for the European Union to recognize themselves in these principles and to recognize Catalans as acting within them and as a result as being a part of not only the principles, but of the group of Nations that want to uphold them.
Antoni Capdevila
TODOS LOS CATALANES TE DAMOS GRACIAS