Wednesday, February 06, 2019

The 21 points that Torra asked Sánchez at their last meeting

The Catalan president called for "making effective the right to self-determination" and have "an international mediation"

In the last meeting between the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of the Generalitat, Quim Torra, which took place in Barcelona on 20 December, Torra handed Sanchez a document with 21 points to address a solution to the Catalan conflict. In this document, released on Tuesday, the Generalitat insisted on the need to "recognize and enforce the right to self-determination of the people of Catalonia," and called for an "international mediation that should facilitate negotiation on an equal basis." Precisely, this mediation is what the independence parties now require as a condition to withdraw the amendment to the totality of the General State Budgets.

Both governments left the meeting defending a brief joint statement, in which they were summoned to "continue to promote spaces for dialogue" despite maintaining "notable differences" on the ways of resolving the conflict.

The document delivered by President Torra to Sánchez is divided into three areas that the Generalitat considers essential to reach "a state pact" to solve the conflict. These are: giving a democratic response to Catalonia; the democratic regeneration of Spain; and making Spain free of Francoism. Only with these three principles, claims the document, it will be possible to revert "the distrust of the citizenship of all the state, and especially the Catalan one, which affects practically all the institutions".

In the first area, the Generalitat calls for the right to self-determination to be recognized and "effective", for international mediation to occur, and for the judicial way to be abandoned. It also demands that the "police and economic abuses" towards Catalonia be investigated. In the field of democratic regeneration of Spain, the document considers, among other points, that "the deterioration of Spain's image in the world must be stopped" and that to do so "the separation of powers must be guaranteed". Finally, in the context of what the Catalan government considers "the influence of the Franco regime in Spain," the document calls for a debate on the monarchy, the annulment of all Francoist trials and implementing a policy of mass graves.

The 21 points of the 'president'

1. The Government cannot govern against Catalonia.

2. The right of self-determination of the people of Catalonia must be recognized and enforced.

3. International mediation is necessary, which must facilitate negotiation between equal parts.

4. The sovereignty of Catalan institutions must be respected and not threatened with the application of Article 155.

5. The police and economic abuses exercised against the people of Catalonia must be investigated.

6. The judicial route must be left behind.

7. A commitment to political ethics is to be promoted.

8. The separation of powers must be guaranteed.

9. It is essential to put an end to the limitation of fundamental rights.

10. The decline in the democratic quality of Spain has to be reversed.

11. The deterioration of the image of Spain in the world must be stopped.

12. The complicity of police forces and the judicial apparatus with the extreme right must end.

13. Judicial independence must be guaranteed.

14. It is necessary to ensure respect for Human Rights.

15. The shadow and influence of the Francoist culture survives and is incompatible with the democratic fullness in Spain.

16. Indolence with fascism, impunity with fascist attitudes is directly related to the impunity of Franco's crimes.

17. The neo-fascist groups have to be isolated and denounced.

18. The existence of privileges derived from Francoism is incompatible with democracy.

19. It is necessary to undertake an explicit process of making Spain free of Francoism and a debate on the monarchy.

20. The nullity of the Francoist trials is an essential step of historical memory.

21. A policy of mass graves must be enforced.

  https://elpais.com/ccaa/2019/02/05/catalunya/1549392727_663325.html

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