Alex Cubero
Barcelona (EFE) self-determination and subsequently agree with the State.
His intention is that throughout this year academic works and political, sectoral and citizen debates will be developed that come together in a Catalan proposal at the beginning of 2024, to then bring it to the negotiating table with the Government.
These are all the keys to that clarity agreement proposal:
1) What is the inspiration for the Aragonès clarity agreement?
The Catalan president’s proposal is based on the so-called Canadian route: in the year 2000, after the persistence of the secessionist demands of the French-speaking province of Quebec (it held two referendums in 1980 and 1995, the second with a unionist victory by the minimum), the Canadian government passed a clarity law after seeking the opinion of the Supreme Court.
The law defined aspects of a hypothetical future agreed referendum, such as that the Canadian Parliament could decide if the question that Quebec formulated was sufficiently clear or if the votes obtained by the independentistas were enough to prevail (it was stipulated that a simple majority was not enough); and it specified cumbersome issues that would eventually be negotiated, such as borders, the distribution of public property, the national debt, or the rights of linguistic minorities and indigenous nations.
2) Why did Aragonès and ERC opt for this path for the referendum?
Although Esquerra considers that the referendum of October 1, 2017 was a “collective exercise of peaceful and democratic disobedience”, the Republicans admit that that consultation did not have international recognition, nor internal legitimacy among the Catalans and that it was not even connected with good part of the non-independence population, which is why the result could not be applied.
For this reason, given the blockade of the independence strategy since then and the internal fracture in that movement, the Republicans have opted since their arrival in the Generalitat for the dialogue channel, to achieve an agreed referendum that enjoys international legitimacy: the agreement of Clarity would be the way to achieve it.
3) First phase: The group of experts
The roadmap proposed by Aragonès for the Catalan proposal for a clarity agreement will follow a “circular” process: it will be the Government that activates the machinery this April and it will be the Government that completes it in approximately one year.
The first step that the Government will take will be in the coming days, when the Catalan Executive will formulate a battery of questions (just over half a dozen) addressed to a group of experts, made up of academics from Political Science and Law and coordinated by the political scientist Marc Sanjaume, the only name that has transcended.
The idea is that these questions deal with different “democratic mechanisms” that can contribute to resolving the conflict; the academic council (the Government assures that it intends for it to be plural and diverse, even with academics opposed to the referendum, although it will avoid quotas) issues a report answering each question.
4) Second phase: Political, sectoral and citizen debate
As of June, after the municipal elections on May 28, the political debate will start, which will be reflected in the call by Aragonès of the Catalan party table, to which he will invite all the groups of the Parliament except Vox .
Simultaneously, sectoral debates will also be held, with entities, platforms and organizations from civil, business, union, cultural and even sports society.
And in autumn the citizen debates will be held with close to a thousand participants: eight groups will be formed (one by Catalan veguería), each one with one hundred people selected by lottery as a representative sample of Catalan society; According to Catalan government sources, it will be done following the “scientific” methodology of academic research focus groups.
5) Third phase: Negotiation with the State
All these previous works and debates will be collected by the group of experts, which will forward a final and conclusive report to the Government at the beginning of 2024, which, according to Aragonès, will be the basis of the Catalan referendum proposal.
With this proposal under his arm, Aragonès will raise the possibility of agreeing to a self-determination referendum in Catalonia at the negotiating table with the State.
6) What referendum proposal does Esquerra imagine?
Although the president has made clear his willingness to listen to the proposals of all the parties and agree on the final proposal, the truth is that his party, Esquerra, advanced to the rest of the formations and already in January approved in its national congress the proposal to referendum that he will put on the table.
The Republican proposal is based on the Montenegrin formula: a clear question with a binary response; all residents of Catalonia over the age of 16 and non-residents who have the right to vote in the Catalan elections could vote; and the triumph of independence would require a minimum of 50% participation and 55% yeses in favor of independence.
7) What support does Aragonès have for now?
In addition to the support of his own party, Aragonès currently only has the favorable predisposition of En Comú Podem to this agreement of clarity.
On the other hand, JxCat (former coalition partner) or the CUP have already expressed their reluctance or even opposition to this proposal on multiple occasions; The rejection of the PSC, PP, CS or Vox has been more forceful, although the Socialists have insisted since the beginning of the legislature that Aragonès convene the table of Catalan parties to address the resolution of the conflict there, which they qualify as “among Catalans”.