Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Catalonia The Next State in Europe

Catalonia The Next State in Europe  

Separatists suggest 2014 as a possible date for a plebiscite. The glue holding CiU and ERC together could come unstuck sooner than that. "

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Dear colleagues,

As usual after Catalan elections, please find an update on the outcome of the vote which took place last Sunday 25th November 2012. The main facts of these elections are:

 

·         Very high participation: 70% compared to 59% in 2010 to elect 135 MPs of the Catalan Parliament. It proves that the issue of self-determination matters. This participation has been even higher than in last Spanish elections of 2011 in Catalonia (66%).

·         CiU remains the first Party of Catalonia with 50 MPs and the 30% of the vote: 1,112,341 votes (1,202,830 in 2010). CiU has lost 12 seats, 11 of which have gone to a left-wing independentist party (ERC), because of the austerity measures applied by the CiU government in the last 2 years.

·        The second party in the Catalan Parliament  is an independentist one: ERC  has  got 21 MPs (496,292 votes), rising from 10 MPs in 2010 (218,046 votes). His leader, Oriol Junqueras, has been MEP in the Green/ALE group between 2009 and 2011).

·         Pro-referendum parties won 87 of the 135  MPs in the Catalan parliament (1 more compared to 2010), because Catalan Greens (13 MPs of ICVerds, the party of Raül Romeva) and Catalan Communists (3 MPs) also support the referendum.

·      Both Spanish parties (PP and PSOE) have obtained together the 27% of the votes, falling from 31% they got in 2010. PSOE got 20 MPs with 523,333 votes (28 MPs in 2010) and PP got 19 MPs with 471,197 votes (18 Mps in 2010).

·       The anti-independence parties reach only 48 MPs of the 135 MPs: there's a third party, Ciutadans which obtained 9 MPs. It is a new pro-Spanish party not dependent from the 2 big Spanish parties of Madrid.

·        Even if, in the last week of the campaign, there has been in some Madrid press a huge blaming game against the Catalan President Artur Mas, with allegations of corruption and having secret banc accounts in Switzerland, according to a supposed existing dossier from the Spanish police which has not been demonstrated, Artur Mas and CiU has clearly won again the elections. Yesterday he declared during a press conference, that the referendum will surely take place in this legislature.



Full results of the vote can be found here:


 Let me quote  a short passage of the FT editorial published today: Barcelona’s draw

" True, CiU and ERC have enough seats to form a governing coalition that would put the question of sovereignty at the heart of its programme. But the parties hold opposite views on the economy, with ERC strongly opposed to the programme of fiscal consolidation championed by Mr Mas. Separatists suggest 2014 as a possible date for a plebiscite. The glue holding CiU and ERC together could come unstuck sooner than that. "



On this note of hope, I wish you a great day and week

Best regards, 

Ramon Tremosa-i-Balcells
Catalan MEP, ALDE Group 
@ramontremosa


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