MEMORANDUM #29 T HE P E OP LE O F C AT AL O N I A M AR CH M AS S I V E LY
( AG AI N )
F OR I NDE P E ND E N CE
11 September is Catalonia’s national day, called “La Diada”. It marks the date in 1714 when after 14 months of siege Barcelona fell to the army of the Spain’s King Felipe V in the War of Spanish Succession. This led to Catalonia finally being folded into Spain against its will. Catalonia’s national day celebrations were supressed for 40 years during the Franco dictatorship, but were reinstated in 1980 when the autonomous government of Catalonia, the Generalitat, was restored as part of Spain’s muchpraised transition to democracy. At the same time Catalonia was promised greater self-rule, to be enshrined in a Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia’s regional government. Despite a new Statute being passed by Spain’s Parliament in 2006 and approved by a large majority in a referendum in Catalonia, it wasn’t long before Spain’s Parliament began to trim the devolved powers. The tipping point for Catalonia came in 2010 when Spain’s government urged the Constitutional Court to drastically cut even more devolved powers from the Statute of Autonomy. The Catalan people felt betrayed, and that year a million Catalans took to the streets of Barcelona to peacefully protest under the banner “We are a nation. We decide.” The Madrid government ignored Catalonia’s ire, and followed up with a campaign of recentralisation that continues until today. Civil society across Catalonia, led by two key groups, the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) and Omnium Cultural built a broad-based grassroots network of support for selfdetermination and eventually independence. Since 2012 the bottom up broad-based movement has peacefully gathered a million Catalans from all walks of life, and from every corner of Catalonia to march peacefully and joyfully every 11 September. The 11 September 2016 “La Diada” had the theme of “A Punt” (We Are Ready). This year rather than one massive march there were five simultaneous decentralised events across Catalonia’s different provinces, ranging from central Barcelona, the provincial capitals of Tarragona and Lleida, the town of Salt in Girona province, and the town of Berga in Barcelona province. Representatives of different civil society groups spoke at the decentralised events, calling for Spain to stop ignoring the Catalan people. Catalonia’s President, Carles Puigdemont, participated in the march in Salt, in his native province of Girona. Earlier in the day he told a gathering of foreign press attending “La Diada” that, “The way forward is talking and reaching agreements between very diverse and different people.” His Catalan Democratic Party (PDC) is governing in a pro-independence alliance with the Republic Left of Catalonia (ERC) and some independents called “Together For Yes” which with the pro-independence left CUP party won a majority in the last regional elections based on a manifesto
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presenting a road map that would lead to Catalonia’s independence from Spain at the end of an 18-month transition which is due to end in June 2017. For the first time Barcelona’s Mayor, Ada Colau, also joined the marchers despite heading a political party, “Barcelona en Comú”, the Catalan version from “Podemos”, that does not support independence. Her party strongly believes that Catalonia has a right to decide its own political future, and deplores the Spanish government’s refusal to negotiate, or even to talk with Catalonia’s government, hiding behind legal actions to block the independence movement, when this is a political problem that requires a political solution. Spain´s long-standing government gridlock dates from last December, through two General Elections where Spain’s major parties refused to accept the will of the people, which was for them to work together to form a new government. The Spanish political parties blocking Catalonia having a referendum might learn a lesson from the teamwork among the different parties in Catalonia who have put aside ideological differences to fulfil a democratic mandate from the Catalan people to advance towards independence. Catalonia’s leaders unanimously call for dialogue with the Spanish government but nobody appears to be listening. The Catalan people once again this year showed the strength of their spirit and will by turning out in massive numbers to express their wishes for Catalonia’s democratic mandate to be fulfilled.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Institutional Relations and Transparency Government of Catalonia Barcelona, 20 September 2016
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