Politics

A brief swearing-in ceremony was held on Monday in the Generalitat Palace (the seat of the Catalan Government) when – after the Cabinet reshuffle – four new Catalan Ministers officially took office. During the event, the President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, stated that the new Executive is "100% cohesive" in defending the full independence of Catalonia. This statement comes after the "painful" but "inevitable" separation between his party, Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) and its historical ally, Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (UDC); a long-awaited split mostly due to disagreement over Catalonia's independence debate. During the ceremony, Mas also thanked the three outgoing Ministers.

After running together in every election since 1978, Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) and Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (UDC) are splitting apart. The Liberal party CDC, which is the larger force within the centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU (running the Catalan Government since 2010), supports full independence from Spain while the Christian-Democrat UDC does not have a clear stance on the issue and its leadership is against it and is supporting a Catalan State confederated with Spain. After UDC held an internal consultation over the issue last weekend, which split the Christian-Democrats into two camps, crisis within CiU seemed inevitable. On Wednesday, UDC announced it was leaving the Catalan Government but not CiU. The Liberal CDC met that night and, on Thursday morning, announced "the CiU is over"; that they were splitting from the Christian-Democrats for "deep reasons".

The Catalan Government approved decrees on Tuesday for the creation of three new delegations abroad, in the Holy See, Portugal and Morocco. TheMinister of the Presidency, Francesc Homs, said the purpose of opening these delegations is to facilitate bilateral relations and defend the social and economic interests of Catalonia abroad. With these new delegations, which are included in the Foreign Action Strategic Plan 2015-2018, the Government of Catalonia will have an international network of 10 offices abroad.

Tensions over the issue of independence between the two parties forming the CiU coalition have caused a government crisis in Catalonia. Three ministers from the Christian-Democrat party UDC, the smaller party within the CiU, have left government after their allies of 37 years, CDC, presented them with an “ultimatum”. The governing council of UDC decided on Wednesday, with 16 votes in favour, 10 against and 2 abstentions, that Vice-president Joana Ortega, Minister of Agriculture Josep Maria Pelegrí and Minister of Home Affairs Ramon Espadaler, who is also the secretary general of UDC, should quit Artur Mas’ government. UDC voted on Sunday by a slim majority in favour of an ambiguous stance on the issue of independence, in which the party supported the right to self-determination but fell short of stating whether or not Catalonia should actually vote ‘yes’ to full independence from Spain. Following the result, the Liberal party CDC, led by Mas, urged their coalition partners to state clearly whether or not they are for independence. Elections to the Catalan Parliament are expected to be held on the 27 of September, and may be considered a plebiscite on independence. Tensions between CDC and UDC over the reluctance of the latter to clearly support independence make it unlikely that they will run together, although UDC has said it will still provide parliamentary support to CDC in the coming months and won’t split the coalition at local level.

The centre-right pro-Catalan State two-party coalition CiU, which runs the Catalan Government, may be on the verge of splitting up after three-and-a-half decades, and having run together in all the elections. The smaller force within the CiU, the Christian-Democrat party UDC, is going through serious internal tension over Catalonia's independence debate. The party leadership does not support independence, while a significant part of its members does. Added to this, the larger force within the CiU, the Liberal party CDC, is now the main party within the pro-independence camp. However, UDC does not have an official stance on independence and has been avoiding the issue so far, supporting Catalonia's right to self-determination, the organisation of a referendum on this issue and the creation of a Catalan State with full sovereignty, but without specifying its stance on the crucial point: whether this state would be fully independent or would be confederated with Spain. On Sunday, the party held an internal consultation on the party's role in the self-determination process. The vote became a plebiscite on the UDC's leadership. 51% of the members supported the leadership's approach and 46% voted against it.

Ada Colau is the new Mayor of Barcelona. It is the first time that the Catalan capital has a woman as Mayor. Colau, who led the alternative left and green coalition Barcelona en Comú, won the last municipal elections – held on 24 May. However, she lacked support to reach the absolute majority in the City Council and be elected Mayor. During the last 3 weeks, she has been negotiating with the other leftist parties over forming a coalition government or at least obtaining their support and reaching the 21 vote minimum necessary in the City Council’s mayoral election. None of the other parties have so far agreed to form a government coalition with Colau, but 3 of them have backed her to be elected Mayor. They are the left-wing Catalan independence party ERC, the Catalan Socialist Party PSC and the radical independence and alternative left party CUP.

The President of the Catalan government, Artur Mas, has told parties favouring the right to self-determination on Thursday to "enhance" the plebiscitary character of the 27-S elections after the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) ruled the Catalan government's preparations for the 9-N election unconstitutional. The 9-N ballot asked voters whether Catalonia should be independent. According to Mas, the judgment evidences that the Constitution has become a "dead end" and that there is no other route left except for a plebiscitary vote. He warned that the TC cannot "override or erase" the vote of 2.3 million people on 9-N.

International experts have participated in a day of debate over the hypothetical scenarios and the possible consequences regarding membership or expulsion from the European Union of an independent Catalonia. The panellists ruled out automatic expulsion, as well as automatic membership, in any scenario. Graham Avery, Senior Adviser of the Brussels-based think tank European Policy Centre (EPC), underlined that "the most important" element in deciding what would happen to an independent Catalonia would be "the process" through which it achieves this independence. If it was carried out with the agreement of the Spanish Government, the transition towards full EU membership would be quite fast and smooth. If it was done unilaterally, then a wide range of scenarios are possible, with risks and costs rising. However, a majority of experts have stated that even in the worst case scenario, the costs would not be as high as the Spanish Government is saying. In addition, they affirmed that the EU is likely to adopt a pragmatic approach and that a transition regime is likely to be set up, with basic policies and freedoms not being interrupted.

Lombardy, Baden-Württemberg, Rhône-Alpes and Catalonia will work together to develop strategies to foster the Information and Communication Technology sector in both their own territories and at European level, in order to make the continent hold a leading position in this sector at world level. This has been the main conclusion of the main event of the current presidency of the Four Motors for Europe, which is a regional association formed in 1988 by the aforementioned 4 territories in order to develop common projects and lobby at European level. Catalonia currently holds the association's rotating presidency and has made the development of the ICT sector its main objective, particularly focusing on smart city and 4.0 technologies. Lombardy, Baden-Württemberg, Rhône-Alpes and Catalonia signed on Wednesday in Barcelona a shared declaration strengthening their commitment in this field.

The leader of the alternative left and green coalition Barcelona en Comú, Ada Colau, has announced that she will attend the massive demonstration for independence scheduled for Catalonia's National Day (11 September). In 2014, the demonstration gathered more than 1.8 million people in Barcelona. Colau won the municipal elections 2 weeks ago and therefore is likely to become the next Mayor of the Catalan capital. Last week, she said she would not join the self-determination road map agreed between the centre-right pro-Catalan State coalition CiU and the left-wing independence party ERC because she refuses to reach agreements with the right-wing CiU. Pro-Spanish unity media started to speculate that she did not support Catalonia's self-determination process. This Monday Colau highlighted her commitment to the process and announced her will to contribute "to a constituent process that should allow for real sovereignty", expanding the current process' plurality.

In times of economic crisis, the Mariano Rajoy-led Spanish Government has been making recentralisation a main driver of its political agenda, using the economic recovery as the reason for passing the reforms. An additional step in this direction was taken on Monday with a new regulation forcing Spanish Autonomous Communities to seek permission from the Spanish Ministry of Finance before granting loans and guarantees to private companies located in their territories. From now on, Madrid's permission will be conditional upon the applicant's compliance with deficit targets. The new regulation substantially curbs the Autonomies' powers to shape their industrial policies, following a reform passed in May that modifies both the Organic Law for Financing the Autonomous Communities and the Organic Law on Budgetary Stability and Financial Sustainability.

The Catalan President, Artur Mas, argued that having a separate stand for Catalonia is an “opportunity” to show to the world the country’s “own personality and identity”. This is the first time that Catalonia is not taking part in an International Expo as part of the Spanish pavilion. Mas admitted that the decision was due to the political conflict with Madrid, but added that having a separate space was the “right solution”. Catalonia is present at Expo Milano 2015, with an exhibition entitled ‘Barcelona Capital of Catalonia. Real food for real people’, which promotes the culinary tradition in the country and its capital.

The leadership of the Christian-Democrat party UDC supports Catalonia's self-determination but it is against full independence; it supports the creation of a Catalan State with greater powers than it currently has while remaining within Spain, which should embrace its plurinational nature and become a confederal country. However, an important part of UDC's base does support independence and has been trying to force an open debate and consultation on it within the party, in order to set the official party stance on this issue. Currently, the leadership's vision represents UDC's traditional stance on this issue, but the party does not have an official stance on independence yet. This situation has provoked tensions within the small party but also with their allies for the last three-and-a-half decades, the Liberal party CDC, which is the largest force within the two-party coalition CiU that currently runs the Catalan Government. UDC announced an internal consultation on 14 June to fix the party's definitive stance on this debate. However, the leadership has presented a question that avoids independence; a formulation that has created quite some controversy among UDC members.

Christy Burke says Irish people “understand the position, the views and the feelings of the Catalan people” because they “know what it was like to be treated as second-class citizens”. The Lord Mayor of Dublin, who is an independent councillor but was formerly a member of Sinn Féin, said that Ireland “would assist in whatever way possible” in order to help Catalan leaders achieve “an adequate, decent, independent by self-determination, country to live in”. Burke said this during an interview with ACN after meeting a delegation from the Public Diplomacy Council of Catalonia and the Catalan Government.

Ada Colau, who leads the alternative left and green coalition Barcelona en Comú, is very likely to become the Catalan capital's next Mayor, with there not being enough ground on which to build an alternative majority. Colau won Sunday’s elections by obtaining 11 seats in the 41-seat City Council, just 1 seat more than the incumbent Mayor from the centre-right pro-Catalan State Coalition CiU, Xavier Trias. In the last days, the People's Party – which runs the Spanish Government – and some economic powers have been pressuring for the building of an alternative majority led by Trias. However, the essential parties involved do not support the idea. In order to facilitate her election, Colau has cleared up any doubt surrounding her fully supporting the continuing of the Mobile World Congress, the world's main event of the mobile phone-related industries, which will take place each year in Barcelona until 2018. Colau has validated the offer prepared by Trias' team to extend the organisation of the congress until at least 2023.