Catalan government says ‘Scotland-style’ independence vote is workable

Six years after defying Madrid by holding a referendum on independence, the government of Catalonia is intensifying calls for a negotiated vote on the issue, arguing it would mend the region’s relationship with the rest of Spain.

The Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, said a group of academics and jurists that his administration commissioned to study a potential referendum had found that it was “possible, viable and legal and can be a shared solution to solve the political conflict with the [Spanish] state”.

On October 1st, 2017, an independence referendum overseen by the then-president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, against the wishes of the central government triggered a constitutional crisis. The secession bid ultimately failed, with Mr Puigdemont and several of the other politicians who led it fleeing abroad while nine more were jailed.

However, Mr Aragonès, of the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), has reiterated his long-standing call for “a Scotland-style referendum” to be agreed upon with the central government, claiming he is being guided by the panel of experts.

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Their report is part of a plan the Catalan president revealed earlier this year, according to which the foundations would be laid for the Spanish state and the international community to acknowledge the legitimacy of a binding vote on independence.

Socialist acting prime minister Pedro Sánchez has repeatedly said that he will not allow an independence referendum to be held, arguing it would be unconstitutional. Opposition parties on the right also oppose the proposal.

A summary of the report, released by the Catalan government, stated that the success of an independence referendum would depend heavily “on regulation, redaction, time, majorities, the manner and conditions in which it is held, as well as the need for the actors involved to agree on it being held”.

Nine experts drew up the document, representing a broad range of opinions on the matter, according to the Catalan government.

ERC and other Catalan pro-independence parties and organisations have consistently called for a formal referendum in recent years. However, the issue has come to the fore of Spanish politics in recent weeks due to negotiations over the possible formation of a new Spanish government.

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Mr Sánchez’s Socialists and left-wing allies are in talks with Catalan nationalist parties in a bid to gain their support for an investiture vote he is due to face by the end of November. ERC and the more hard-line Together for Catalonia (JxCat) are demanding the introduction of an amnesty for Catalan leaders still facing legal action from the 2017 secession drive.

Although the nationalist parties have not set the holding of a referendum as a condition for their parliamentary support, they have demanded that Mr Sánchez should “work to make possible the conditions for the holding of a referendum”.