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The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, accused the Spanish Government of “not having the true will to talk” about Catalonia’s self-determination claims, backed by democratically-expressed ballots. After the weekly Cabinet Meeting, the Deputy Prime Minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, confirmed that the Spanish Government will take the Catalan Parliament’s declaration, which states that the Catalan people are sovereign to freely and democratically decide on their collective future and therefore organise a self-determination vote, to the Constitutional Court. The Spanish Government justified its decision by stating that the declaration – with no direct legal impact – might have legal consequences and wants the Court to “clarify that the Catalan people are not sovereign”.

For the first time since 1982, the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) has voted differently to the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), to which is federated. The PSOE is opposing Catalonia’s self-determination right and voted against the petitions urging the Spanish Government to engage in talks with the Catalan Executive in order to allow the organisation of a self-determination referendum in Catalonia. The Catalan Socialists oppose Catalonia’s independence from Spain but they back Catalonia’s right to self-determination and thus they supported the petitions. As an anecdote, the PSC MP Carme Chacón refused to back the petitions, as she is in the running as a candidate to lead the PSOE. The petitions were finally rejected by 78% of the Spanish Parliament, mostly from the People’s Party – which runs the Spanish Government and holds an absolute majority in the Chamber – and the PSOE, apart from the PSC.

After holding the second high-level meeting with top representatives from all the public powers involved in the fight against corruption and fraud in Catalonia, the Catalan President, Artur Mas, presented a document setting out a list of measures. The document takes into account suggestions and comments by all the attending public powers, but it is not a joint text issued by all the participants, Mas emphasised, as it is only signed by the President of the Catalan Government. An initial meeting was organised on the 6th of February to exchange views and gather ideas. The listed measures relate to transparency, public contracts, judicial capacities, political parties, control bodies and democratic regeneration.

The President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, organised a summit with top representatives from all the public powers involved in the fight against corruption and fraud to exchange ideas and come up with a set of measures. Political parties were not invited and some of them have protested. After the meeting, Mas explained that the attendees agreed to transform the Transparency Agreement from 2001 regarding the funding of political parties into a law in order to enforce it. Furthermore, the Catalan Government will allocate more resources to the judicial powers investigating the main corruption cases. The attendees agreed to compile the initiatives discussed in a document and meet again in two weeks’ time.

The President of the Catalan Government and leader of the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) is organising a summit to define new initiatives against corruption. The meeting will be held next week and will gather together the main representatives of the Catalan Parliament, the Supreme Court of Justice of Catalonia, the Catalan Ombudsman, the Catalan Court of Audit and the Anti-Fraud Office of Catalonia. Political parties are not invited, as the summit is thought to be “complementary” to Parliament’s actions. The Catalan President will ask the attendees to provide him with ideas so that he can channel them and put them on the table for a wider debate. In the last few months, many corruption scandals have affected politicians in Catalonia and the rest of Spain.

The Parliament of Catalonia has approved an historical declaration of sovereignty claiming the right to self-determination by the Catalan people. The full text is included in this news item. The declaration paves the way for the organisation of a self-determination referendum on Catalonia’s future within Spain and its hypothetical independence. It was supported by 66.4% of the MPs who voted, representing 63% of the total parliament. These supporters came from 4 different groups. 2 MPs abstained because the declaration does not include other Catalan-speaking territories and five Socialist MPs did not vote as a protest because their party is officially opposed to the declaration. Those opposing the declaration included 32% of the MPs who voted, representing 30.4% of the total chamber.

The association’s People’s Rights Commission defends the celebration of a referendum and the unilateral independence declaration if the Spanish Government insists in not allowing a citizen vote on the issue. While is it true that the current Spanish Constitution does not allow for a self-determination referendum, the Barcelona lawyers' association argues that “in a democratic society, the law should be the expression of the people’s choice”, and therefore it should be modified accordingly to allow the referendum. It also highlights that 20 of these states are the result of secession, such as Norway, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia or Montenegro.

The Spanish Government is keeping most of the 4.5% public deficit allowed to the entire Spanish public sector in 2013 for itself, despite managing only 50% of the total public spending. It has allowed itself a 3.8% deficit while it has imposed a 0.7% target on the regional governments, which manage almost 40% of the public spending including basic services such as healthcare and education. The European Parliament report indirectly asks Madrid to relax the Autonomous Communities’ deficit targets according to the basic services they provide. In addition, it also states that regional governments should have greater fiscal capacities and depend less on central government transfers. Furthermore, the report asks “some member states” to eliminate the ministries whose powers have been devolved and to “reduce unnecessary defence expenditures”.

The Catalan Parliament has voted Artur Mas, leader of the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU), in as President of the Catalan Government with the votes of his own group and those of the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC). Mas has been re-elected in the first vote with an absolute majority of 71 affirmative votes from the 135 MPs. The rest of the opposition voted against him for two different main reasons: either because they opposed the budget cuts despite supporting the organisation of a self-determination referendum or because they opposed Catalonia’s self-determination altogether. Mas based his campaign on two main pillars: fighting the economic recession and the public finance crisis and pursuing “Catalonia’s national transition”.

The leader of the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) and candidate for re-election to be President of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, stated that he will keep the offer he made to the other parties supporting the celebration of a self-determination vote to join the government open until the end of the legislative term. The offer is due to “the hardness of the situation and the magnitude of the challenges to be faced”. The challenges are “the worst part of the economic recession”, “the crisis of public finances” and “the country’s greatest political operation of the last three centuries”. He also called for a summit to agree on the “impassable limits” of the Welfare state, as further budget cuts will be required.

The Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) and the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC) have reached a definitive agreement ensuring the next Catalan Government parliamentary stability to approve the main laws. The CiU leader Artur Mas will be re-elected President of the Catalan Government with the ERC’s vote in the Catalan Parliament by the end of the week. However, the ERC will not sit in the Cabinet and will only offer support on the agreed issues. The last point blocking the agreement was the CiU’s refusal to set a specific date for a self-determination referendum. Finally, they have agreed on calling for a citizen vote on Catalonia’s independence from Spain in 2014. However, the CiU has managed to include a clause postponing the voting call if both parties explicitly agree to do so.

The 10th legislative term of the Catalan Parliament kicked off with the election of the chamber’s Bureau, a preliminary step before voting for the President of the Catalan Government. The Speaker will now hold talks with party leaders to analyse support and designate a candidate for Catalan President. Following last week’s agreement among 5 of the 7 parties sitting in the chamber, Núria de Gispert, from the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU), has been re-elected as President of the Catalan Parliament. The CiU, the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC), the Catalan Socialists (PSC), the People’s Party (PP) and the Catalan Green Socialists and Communists (ICV-EUiA) have split the rest of the Bureau’s offices. The two smallest parties, the anti-Catalan nationalism ‘Ciutadans’ and the radical left-wing and independence party CUP have been left out of the Bureau.

Holding the self-determination referendum before 2015 and certain aspects of the fiscal policy are the final obstacles to a definitive agreement between the Centre-Right Catalan Nationalist Coalition (CiU) – which won the elections but lost support – and the Left-Wing Catalan Independence Party (ERC) – which is the second largest party now, having doubled its support. After two and half weeks of negotiations, the ERC will vote for the CiU leader, Artur Mas, to be re-elected as President of the Catalan Government. However, the ERC’s stable parliamentary support – since it will not directly be part of the Cabinet – is not granted yet. Party leaders met on Friday to seal the agreement, but differences persist and the date for the re-election debate is approaching.

In Brussels, all political parties but the PP denounced the new proposals by the Spanish minister for Education, José Ignacio Wert, to relegate the Catalan language to a third-class subject in schools. MEPs from the CiU, the ERC, the PSC and the ICV have written a joint letter to the European Comissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, Androulla Vasilliou, asking for a meeting to discuss the Catalan language situation in Spain. The Catalan politicians have also presented a parliamentary question to the European Commission urging the institution to protect languages such as Catalan and asking whether the law proposed by the Spanish government is in line with European directives.