Catalan Government: “We won’t move from our deeply democratic way”

Catalan Government Spokeswoman, Neus Munté responded this Friday to Spain’s decision to take the Parliament’s approval of the pro-independence roadmap before the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC). Munté considered it “unacceptable” that the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, could be suspended and insisted that the Catalan executive “won’t move” from its “deeply democratic way”. She insisted that Catalonia’s roadmap towards independence “remains intact” and stated that “no court could be higher than the democratic will democratically expressed” in the 27-S Catalan elections. “It would be unprecedented that the president of Parliament could be suspended from office by a court decision”, she stated.

Close up of the Catalan Government's Spokeswoman, Neus Munté (by ACN)
Close up of the Catalan Government's Spokeswoman, Neus Munté (by ACN) / ACN

ACN

July 29, 2016 06:39 PM

Barcelona (CNA).- The Catalan Government reacted this Friday to Spain’s intention to take before the Spanish Constitutional Court (TC) the Parliament’s decision to pass the pro-independence roadmap. “We won’t move from our deeply democratic way”, assured the Catalan Government’s Spokeswoman, Neus Munté and said that she considered it “unacceptable” that the Parliament’s President, Carme Forcadell, could be suspended from office, as the Spanish executive urges the TC to do. “It would be unprecedented that the president of Parliament could be suspended from office by a court decision”, stated the Catalan Government Spokeswoman. She insisted that Catalonia’s roadmap towards independence “remains intact” and stated that “no court could be higher than the democratic will democratically expressed” in the 27-S Catalan elections.


Munté also expressed the Government’s “full support” for Forcadell and the Parliament’s Bureau as well. She also insisted that the Parliament’s decision to pass the conclusions of the Committee to Study the Constitutive Process “was not the Bureau’s, not even the Government’s, but that of thousands of men and women who took a democratic stance through the ballot boxes”.

She also criticised the fact that the Spanish Government of the Conservative People’s Party (PP), which is provisional, “is more focused on obstructing democratic expressions than reinforcing them” and referred to the “more than 200 days” since the last time Spain’s executive submitted itself to a control session.

“We are here, as a Government, to obey a democratic mandate and despite all the difficulties we will go ahead committed to this mandate”, stated Munté and pointed to the “huge difficulties faced in dealing with citizens’ daily lives”, referring again to the Spanish Government and its suspension of other laws, especially to that oriented toward dealing with “the housing emergency” approved by the Catalan Chamber.

Pro-independence associations against Spain’s “threats”

The main pro-independence organisations in Catalonia expressed their rejection of the Spanish Government’s decision to take the pro-independence roadmap before the Court. In a joint communiqué, the grassroots association Catalan National Assembly (ANC), Òmnium Cultural, responsible for promoting Catalonia’s culture and language, and the Association of Municipalities for Independence (AMI) referred to Spain’s “threats” which have been “evidenced again”. The pro-independence organisations warned that “these attitudes impede agreed solutions and force Catalonia to take unilateral ways”.

The associations urge the Spanish State and its institutions to “recognise the parliamentarian majority which emerged from the 27-S” and call on all the political forces and organisations in Spain which have “a democratic sense” to refuse “this way based on threats and support an agreed solution instead which is to hold a referendum on independence”. ANC, Òmnium Cultural and AMI also urged the Spanish Government to “agree on a date and a question to make concrete the exercise of the right to decide”.