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The controversial Reform of the Education System continues its progress towards parliamentary approval, now in the Spanish Senate. The Catalan Education Minister, Irene Rigau, stated that with the new law – which “recentralises” and totally “invades” devolved powers – the Autonomous Communities are “delegations of the Central Government”. Furthermore, Rigau asked the Spanish Education Minister, José Ignacio Wert, “to be brave” and “eliminate” the Reform’s points regarding the language immersion principle. This Reform goes against the Catalan school model, which has been in place since the early 1980s and is backed by an almost-total consensus in Catalonia. Rigau pointed out that only 26 cases out of 1.2 million pupils in Catalonia had requested a different model than the one offered. According to her, changing the entire education system and the language equilibrium in Catalonia for 26 families is “abusive and counterproductive”.

The Court based in Strasbourg has answered the appeal of the lawyer representing the Mortgage Platform (PAH), which had occupied an entire apartment block in Salt, near the Catalan city of Girona. 16 families occupied the block in order to get a house, but 3 left fearing eviction. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has temporarily delayed the eviction of the entire apartment block as a precautionary measure until it has fully studied the case, arguing that evicting the families would go against international law on housing rights. The ECHR has given the Spanish Government 8 days to prove it has adopted the measures to guarantee such rights. The decision comes the day the eviction was planned. Families and a thousand supporters received the news crying of joy and shouting the PAH’s motto: “Yes, it can be done; yes, it can be done”.

One of the six ‘fathers’ of the Spanish Constitution, Miquel Roca, who currently leads one of the largest law firms in Spain, stated that the Constitution does not ban a referendum on Catalonia’s self-determination. “It is a matter of political will”, since Catalonia is recognised “as a nationality” by Spain’s main law, stated the respected lawyer, who also used to be a leader of the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU). In front of a committee of the Catalan Parliament, Roca remarked that it would be “absurd” to call for a referendum at Spanish level, as it would only be binding in Catalonia. In the rest of Spain it would not be binding, emphasised Roca, as “it is said in Article 92”. This article reads that non-binding referendums can be called regarding issues of extreme importance.

The Catalan Government has published a report listing all the Spanish Executive’s disloyalties towards Catalonia including not respecting legislation, devolved powers and cultural aspects. The 50-page document has a chapter quantifying the costs of such disloyalty, which totals €9.375 billion, according to the Catalan Government. €5.748 billion correspond to infrastructure which has not been built; €672 million to a reduction in institutional transfers; €1.715 billion to spending increases due to the Spanish Government’s unilateral decisions; and €1.239 to revenue reductions due to similar unilateral decisions which have never been compensated. The report does not take into account the so-called fiscal deficit – the €16.5 billion that each year Catalan tax-payers transfer to the rest of Spain. The Catalan Government emphasised that there has been “a permanent disloyal activity” since 2000.

The People’s Party (PP), which runs the Spanish Government, used its absolute majority in the Spanish Parliament to pass a controversial reform of the Education System, which is not supported by the teachers’ unions or the rest of the political parties. Among several aspects, the new law goes against the Catalan school model, based on the linguistic immersion principle, which guarantees that all pupils master both Spanish and Catalan by the end of their studies, ensuring equal opportunities. The reform is the personal project of Spain’s Education Minister, José Ignacio Wert, who used to collaborate in far-right television channels. The Catalan Education Minister, Irene Rigau, confirmed that she will take the new law to the Constitutional Court and stated that the reform will not be implemented in Catalonia in 2014.

On the same day, the Court re-affirmed its decision to keep its current Chairman in position despite his anti-Catalan public stance and having been a member of the governing People’s Party (PP) until 2011. On top of this, Catalan and Basque Members of the European Parliament from five different parties formally asked the European Commission to intervene against the politicisation of the Spanish Constitutional Court, stressing that EU democracies should have an independent judiciary. The Constitutional Court is the highest interpreter of Spain’s legislation, has to guarantee the respect of fundamental rights and acts as a referee between the different government levels and political actors. In this capacity, it ruled against the appeal presented by the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) against the law that abolished the requirement to know Catalan for working as a public servant in Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera, despite it being the local language.

The Spanish Constitutional Court has decided not to exclude its President, Francisco Pérez de los Cobos, from cases directly affecting Catalonia’s self-government institutions despite his anti-Catalan statements and being a member of the People’s Party (PP) until 2011. Among many statements, in 2005 he made one of the most controversial ones when he said that “Catalans are educated to hate Spanish culture”. The Catalan Government asked him at least to apologise publicly for those words, made at a public event, and to take them back. Furthermore, all the Catalan parties except the Spanish nationalist ones rejected the Court’s decision since the institution loses even more credibility. The anti-Catalan nationalist party Ciutadans (C’s) warns that keeping Pérez de los Cobos in position will allow Catalan independence supporters to take legitimacy away from the Court.

This coming 11^th of September – which is Catalonia’s National Day – pro-independence supporters have organised a gigantic human chain called the ‘Catalan Way Towards Independence’ that will cross Catalonia from North to South stretching 400 km and passing through some of the main cities, such as Barcelona, Girona and Tarragona. After having organised the 1.5 million-strong demonstration of 2012, the civil society platform Catalan National Assembly is preparing a new massive demonstration that calls for independence from Spain. This year’s peculiar demonstration is inspired by the ‘Baltic Way’ of 1989, which gathered 2 million people forming a 670 km-long human chain crossing Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The ‘Baltic Way’ was organised exactly 24 years ago and issued a manifesto that read “a common European home can only by set up if all European nations are granted a free right to self-determination”.

The Catalan Government has reminded it has the exclusive powers to rule local governments in Catalonia, an authority which stems from the Catalan Statute of Autonomy approved by the Spanish Parliament and a binding referendum. Therefore, it does not recognise the Spanish Government’s law proposal on local governments, approved last week in Madrid, and will reject any imposition. The new Catalan law foresees the volunteer merging of municipalities and elimination of 1,034 remunerated positions in the County Councils. It also reshapes the body managing services within the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. Furthermore, it strengthens the control on the creation of new local bodies and the public services offered by municipalities.

The new President of the Spanish Constitutional Court, Francisco Pérez de los Cobos, has turned out to be a member of the People’s Party (PP), which runs the Spanish Government. In addition, the expert in labour law had drafted several reports for the PP on several issues. On top of this, Pérez de los Cobos wrote a book with many sentences against Catalonia and Catalan citizens, amongst other controversial stances. According to the Catalan Government, this person cannot chair an institution that has to act as a referee between the different levels of government in Spain and that has to interpret the Constitution regarding very sensitive issues, such as Catalonia’s self-determination. For this reason, the Catalan Government demanded that Pérez de los Cobos be excluded from all the cases that involve the Catalan Executive.

In March of this year the Catalan Supreme Court (TSJC) cancelled the Catalan Government’s allocation of the publicly-owned Aigües Ter-Llobregat (ATLL) – which supplies water to the 5 million people of Greater Barcelona – to the joint venture led by Acciona and including the Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual. The Government presented an appeal but the TSJC confirmed on the 19^th July its previous decision. Now, the Catalan Government has decided to take the issue to Spain’s highest court to defend the allocation. The Government is convinced the tender process was done correctly, but the other main contender, Agbar, states the opposite. In addition, a Catalan Government’s internal body overlooking public tenders stated that Acciona’s offer should not have won.

The Constitutional Court rejected the allegations presented by the Catalan Parliament against the decision to temporarily suspend the Declaration of Sovereignty. This text was approved in January by two thirds of the Catalan Parliament and it stated that the people of Catalonia are sovereign to decide on their collective future. The Spanish Government took the Declaration to the Constitutional Court, which accepted the appeal and temporarily suspended the text until it reached a final decision – which might take years. The Catalan President stated he was counting on the Court’s decision to maintain the suspension and he emphasised that Catalonia’s self-determination process keeps moving forward. The majority of Catalan parties accused the Constitutional Court of being politicised while Spanish nationalist parties celebrated the decision.

Following a petition by the Spanish Public Prosecutor Office, the judge has called Germà Gordó, the Catalan Minister of Justice, to testify as witness in the alleged influence peddling case of the allocation of licenses to technical vehicle inspection garages. This case affects the ‘Number 3’ of the governing Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU), Oriol Pujol, since the Supreme Court of Catalonia (TSJ) suspects he could have participated in irregular allocation of these licenses. At the time the alleged incidents happened, Gordó was not the Justice Minister but the Secretary of the Catalan Government, a key position overseeing all the daily decisions of the Executive. The TSJ wants to hear Gordó’s version of the tender procedure. Besides, Pujol’s defence has called the former Catalan Business Minister as a witness, since his department was running the tender.

The parties defending the current Catalan school model, which represent 80% of Catalonia’s Parliament, met on Tuesday to discuss how to face the Spanish Government’s Education Reform, known as LOMCE. They all agreed to act together in Madrid to try to change the law. The Catalan Government proposed modifying the reform in the Spanish Parliament in order to make it honour Catalonia’s main law – approved via a binding referendum – which clearly states that Catalan is the language of instruction. The Catalan school model is based on the linguistic immersion principle, guaranteeing equal opportunities and social cohesion. The Spanish Executive’s Education Reform aims to stop linguistic immersion and allow parents to choose Spanish as their children’s language of instruction.

The Spanish Constitutional Court has lifted the temporary suspension of the Catalan Government’s tax on total bank deposits while it is waiting to issue a sentence on the measure. The Spanish Government took Catalonia’s tax on bank deposits, the drug prescription fee and the new judicial taxes to the Court. The Constitutional Court accepted Madrid’s appeal in January and temporarily suspended the implementation of the three measures for five months. After the period is over, the Court believes that, taking into account the need to reduce public deficit, the Catalan Government can now implement the tax on banks, while the magistrates agree on a definitive sentence. However, the Court has extended the suspension on the judicial and drug prescription fees.