Spanish Parliament “supports” Rajoy using “all the measures allowed in the legal framework” to keep Spain’s unity

Barcelona (ACN).- The Spanish Parliament has approved a motion that “supports” the Spanish Government using “all the measures that the legal framework allowed to keep the unity of Spain, as a nation of free and equal citizens only subject to the rule of Law”. The motion has been filed by the People’s Party (PP), which holds an absolute majority and runs the Spanish Government. Spain’s nationalist and populist party UPyD abstained, as well as the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), including the MPs from the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC). The rest of parties have voted against it. Article 8 of the Spanish Constitution, negotiated between democracy supporters and members of the Franco Dictatorship, reads: “the Armed Forces […] have the mission to guarantee Spain’s sovereignty and independence, defending its territorial integrity and the Constitutional order”. The PP’s motion emphasised “the validity” of the current Constitution and stressed that “national sovereignty belongs to Spanish people as a whole”. The motion adds that “a part of the citizenry cannot decide on issues corresponding to the Spanish people as a whole”. This motion answers the Catalan Parliament’s formal petition to transfer the powers to organise referenda to the Catalan Government, using Article 150.2 of the Constitution. Furthermore, the Spanish Parliament has rejected all the motions presented by Catalan parties urging the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to make a move regarding Catalonia’s self-determination and abandon his frontal opposition attitude.

The Spanish Parliament “supports” the Spanish Government in “continuing to adopt, based on the principles of defending general interest, responsibility, stability and moderation, and in the exercise of its will to dialogue, all the measures that the legal framework allowed to keep the unity of Spain, as a nation of free and equal citizens only subject to the rule of Law”. The motion “takes into account the will to talk expressed by the Spanish Government within the Constitutional framework and with absolute respect to the current legislation, and its will to defend the democratic living-togetherness framework that has backed our country’s political and social progress”. The People’s Party motion “points out” that the rule of law does not allow “initiatives, plans and motions approved by any institutional level that go beyond the sovereignty and legality principles”.