Catalan Leader Calls Early Vote in Push for Independence
Artur Mas, Catalonia's president, is bringing forward the elections by almost two years... Read More
Regional President Artur Mas said Catalonia
will hold early elections in September, asking voters to cast
their ballots on independence from Spain for the second time in
a year.
The vote will be held on Sept. 27 while the campaign will kick off on Catalan National Day, Sept. 11, which has seen million-strong pro-independence demonstrations in Barcelona the past three years. Mas reached an agreement with his separatist rival, Esquerra Republicana leader Oriol Junqueras, to run separate tickets, but with a common road map toward secession, making it a de facto referendum on secession.
“Our adversaries would have wanted us to remain divided,” Mas said in a televised address last night. “We managed to reestablish our unity.”
The Catalan leader’s decision marks the end of two months of negotiations with Junqueras. Mas is bringing forward the elections by almost two years after Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy refused to engage on talks on Catalonia’s constitutional future.
“By managing to restore the agreement, Mas is giving the process a new lease of life,” Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, head of the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said in a telephone interview.
Catalonia is home to 7.4 million people in the northeast corner of the Iberian peninsula. It has an annual output of 193 billion euros ($227 billion). That’s about the same as Finland or Scotland, where voters opted to remain part of the U.K. in an independence referendum last September.
Mas tried to follow the Scottish example, holding a disputed, non-binding ballot in November in which 2.3 million people voted, with 81 percent backing a split with the rest of Spain.
To contact the reporter on this story: Esteban Duarte in Madrid at eduarterubia@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net Ben Sills, Jim Silver
The vote will be held on Sept. 27 while the campaign will kick off on Catalan National Day, Sept. 11, which has seen million-strong pro-independence demonstrations in Barcelona the past three years. Mas reached an agreement with his separatist rival, Esquerra Republicana leader Oriol Junqueras, to run separate tickets, but with a common road map toward secession, making it a de facto referendum on secession.
“Our adversaries would have wanted us to remain divided,” Mas said in a televised address last night. “We managed to reestablish our unity.”
The Catalan leader’s decision marks the end of two months of negotiations with Junqueras. Mas is bringing forward the elections by almost two years after Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy refused to engage on talks on Catalonia’s constitutional future.
“By managing to restore the agreement, Mas is giving the process a new lease of life,” Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, head of the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said in a telephone interview.
Catalonia is home to 7.4 million people in the northeast corner of the Iberian peninsula. It has an annual output of 193 billion euros ($227 billion). That’s about the same as Finland or Scotland, where voters opted to remain part of the U.K. in an independence referendum last September.
Mas tried to follow the Scottish example, holding a disputed, non-binding ballot in November in which 2.3 million people voted, with 81 percent backing a split with the rest of Spain.
To contact the reporter on this story: Esteban Duarte in Madrid at eduarterubia@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net Ben Sills, Jim Silver
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