The referendum will be 1st October: ‘Do you want Catalonia to be an independent state in the form of a republic?’

The referendum on the independence of Catalonia will be held on Sunday 1 October 2017, and the Catalans will be asked to answer yes or no to the following question: ‘Do you want Catalonia to be an independent state in the form of a republic?’ This was announced this morning at the Palau de la Generalitat by President Carles Puigdemont, and Vice-President Oriol Junqueras, in the Pati dels Tarongers, accompanied by the Members of Parliament of Junts pel Sí and the CUP.

The question will be asked in Catalan, Spanish and Aranese, and the answer will be yes or no. This was explained by Puigdemont. ‘The answer our citizens give, in the form of a yes or no, will be a mandate that this government promises to apply. It is time for the Catalans to decide on their future; it is in all of our hands to make it possible, to show that democracy unites us beyond the legitimate and healthy discrepancies that characterise all mature and convivial society that knows how to take decisions for itself while respecting all possible answers to the question; answers all equally legitimate and valid.’

And he went on. ‘The government promises to offer full guarantees and to ensure the correctness of the process of calling, organising and holding the referendum, and a call is made to all citizens to collectively assume the exercise of an unalienable right, the people’s right to decide freely on the future of their country.’

‘ We have repeatedly pursued an agreement’
Puigdemont recalled the attempts that Catalonia has made in recent years to negotiate an agreement. ‘We have repeatedly pursued an agreement. We have called upon the Spanish government to negotiate in a firm will to reach a solution. We have explained this to everyone. But we are coming to the end of the legislature and have received no positive reply.’

And he remembered, ‘when they asked the Catalans what we wanted, we gave them proposals, but they have all been rejected. We come from a large collection of ‘no’s to all of the proposals we have made to resolve the political conflict. The only thing that has never been voted in Congress is the proposal from the state, maybe because there isn’t one.’

And he went further, ‘Let all those who wonder how we have come thus far take note. It is not a question of legal frameworks, everyone knows where the real problem lies. The president said “I don’t want to”. It is not an individual refusal, but one of a whole political, media, social and economic system incapable of showing any will to participate in solving a real and deep problem’.

‘A state that breaches fundamental rights’
Before Puigdemont, the vice-president Oriol Junqueras spoke, criticising the attitude of the Spanish government, which he said ‘breaches fundamental democratic rights and anti-democratically performs its functions’. Junqueras spent the whole of his speech criticising the Spanish government and appealing to the democratic mandate of the 27-S and of the Parliament to hold the referendum. According to Junqueras, the state is harming the economic interests of Catalonia and also the concept of social justice, giving the example of the Spanish government’s appeal against the measures to fight energy poverty.