We interrupt this series of rants, raves and placid summer vibes to offer those of you not bored out of their mind with "the Catalan Question", The Letter. After much prevaricating about the proverbial bush, the Catalan President has finally put in a formal request for an independence referendum. Here's the English version they have published - a translation which could do with a fine tuning, but ... cordially ...
Artur Mas, the President of Catalonia, sent a letter to Spain's
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on July 26, 2013, officially proposing
negotiations to hold a referendum on Catalonia decide its political
future.
Most Honorable Sr. D. Mariano Rajoy Brey
President Government of Spain
Moncloa Palace 28071 Madrid
Dear President:
The
Catalan people's desire for self government is well known, and has been
both demanded and exercised over the centuries. In the current
democratic period, begun at the end of the last century, said desire was
initially channeled through the Statute of Autonomy of 1979.
The
Catalan Parliament passed a new proposal for a Statute of Autonomy in
2005 which was approved first by the Spanish Congress in 2006 and
finally via referendum by the People of Catalonia. My personal
involvement, although I did not act in an official capacity of the
Government at that time, was, as is well known, during the entire
negotation, to facilitate Catalonia's place within Spain.
The
later ruling from the Spanish Constitutional Court diluted and to a
large degree annulled the democratic will of the Catalan people
expressed at the ballot booths, and gave firm evidence that it was
impossible to continue developing Catalonia's self-government in the way
it had up to that moment.
More recently, during
the previous legislative session, the negative answer to any kind of
negotiation with respect to a proposal of a Fiscal Pact, promoted by the
Government of the Generalitat and approved by a wide margin of the
Parliament of Catalonia, proved, once more, the Spanish State's
inability to answer the proposals presented by Catalonia.
This
blockage along with the most widely attended demonstration in the
history of Catalonia last September 11 brought me to the conclusion that
I must call snap elections so that Catalonia could freely and
democratically decide its political future.
These
last elections to the Parliament of Catalonia resulted in wide popular
support, with a very high turnout—indeed the highest turnout in the
history of this kind of elections—to various political powers which
presented in their electoral platforms the need to exercise the right to
decide.
The Parliament of Catalonia has
demonstrated on various occasions during the present legislature, and
with super majorities, the Catalan People's support for the right to
decide and has established a mandate for dialogue and negotiation with
the Government of Spain and with the objective of holding a democratic
referendum. The recent constitution of the National Assembly on the
Right to Decide demonstrated, concurrently, the wide support that this
movement has among institutions, commercial and social organizations,
and the civil society all throughout Catalonia.
The
Advisory Council for National Transition, an organism created by the
Government of the Generalitat and which is formed by distinguished
members of our community, argues in its first report that there are
legal methods that would allow such a referendum to be held. Because it
is a high quality report whose content is of certain interest, I will
take the liberty of making a copy available to you within a few days.
It
is for all of the above that I believe there are favorable conditions
for celebrating a referendum in Catalonia: widespread citizen and
parliamentary support, the will to dialogue and negotiate, and the
existence of legal frameworks in which it may be held.
I
understand that when these circumstances occur, most certainly a
product of a long historical trajectory that I described at the
beginning of this letter, it is the duty of the public governmental
representatives to forge the political will that would allow for a
response to the legitimate, peaceful, democratic, and majority-held
aspirations of a people, in our case, the Catalan people.
In
our last meeting, I suggested that a political response to the Catalan
people's democratic demands would be necessary. Today, I reiterate that
to you in writing, with the same spirit of dialogue and negotiation as
was present in our last meeting.
I am aware of
your position against the celebration of a referendum, as you told me at
our last meeting. Nevertheless, I understand at the same time that
other countries—also in the European Union—have found ways of solving
these kinds of challenges and realities democratically and legally.
Spain should not be the exception to the rule.
Therefore,
I express once again the need to open a dialogue and negotiation that
would allow a celebration of to exercise the right to decide. a
referendum of the People of Catalonia, in the shortest timeframe
possible, within the legal framework that we establish.
Cordially,
Artur Mas Barcelona, July 26, 2013
