Interior Ministry applies Basque recipe against Catalan independence process
They think that the methods used against ETA in the Basque Country could prove useful in a case as different as that of Catalonia
Among the many errors committed by the Spanish government when confronting the Catalan independence process there is a recurring one: thinking that the methods used against ETA in the Basque Country could prove useful in a case as different as that of Catalonia. The latest example is that, among the Interior Ministry’s arguments for refusing the registration of the Catalan Democratic Party (CDP), they have cited the Law of Political Parties, a piece of legislation of dubious democratic character approved by José Maria Aznar’s government in 2002 with the aim of making Batasuna illegal [1].
Article 6 of this law states that “all political parties must conform to the Constitution and laws”. So, as the CDP defends independence “without renouncing the unilateral path” in its statutes, the Interior Ministry considers the CDP to be in breach of the law and is blocking its legalisation. How is that for an eye-opener? The assumption that the Spanish Constitution allowed for all ideas to be defended was only half true, although the Constitution does not require adhesion to its principles, according to the doctrine of the Constitutional Court. In short: you are allowed to support independence, but without any effective or realistic way of achieving it, as —according to the Constitution— it would only be feasible by amending the Spanish charter, which requires a two-thirds majority in the Spanish parliament.
When all is said and done, then, this Constitution has become a prison for Catalans, as not even if everyone in Catalonia voted in favour of separatist representatives would their will be respected, being only 47 deputies out of 350. To the legal persecution of leaders like Artur Mas, Francesc Homs, Joana Ortega and Irene Rigau, we must now add ideological persecution and pressure on a political party to renounce one of its founding principles. It is, as Marta Pascal, general coordinator of the CDP made clear yesterday, “a scandal of the greatest magnitude”.
Just days before the Catalan National Day on the 11th September, the Spanish state never misses a chance to provide independence supporters —whom it believes must be legally pursued and outlawed— with new arguments on a daily basis. It doesn’t even realise that it is precisely this “unbreathable atmosphere”, as Mas himself defined it yesterday, what will lead many people out onto the streets this Sunday
[1] N.T. Batasuna was a Basque separatist political party outlawed in 2003 for allegedly being ETA’s mouthpiece.
