Coping and being the first to introduce relevant aspects that provoke debate in pre-campaign and electoral campaign periods is a constant. Currently the card is played in a double game, since there are Catalan and European elections. Yesterday Pere Aragonès put it on the table. The clarity agreement that he proposes from 2022 does not have consensus, but the president goes a long way and released the report that in November he commissioned from the Institut d'Estudis de l'Autogovern (IEA), directed by former ERC deputy Joan Ridao, to study the most feasible legal route to carry out an independence referendum.
Article 92 of the Constitution is, in his opinion, the ideal, but the text goes further and even dares to formulate a proposed question: “Do you want Catalonia to be an independent State?” It also stipulates, among others, that participation percentages are not required to consider a referendum valid.
The attempt by Aragonès and ERC to take the lead in the media debate had some effect: shortly after, the Moncloa responded with a new resounding no and the PSC announced that it was studying the possibility of denouncing the Government's use of media before the Electoral Board. to carry out an electoral campaign before the regional elections. The PP of Catalonia has already denounced it and Alberto Núñez Feijóo demanded that the Republican stop “making noise.”
Be that as it may, the referendum question is inspired by that of Scotland in 2014, with a totally binary answer: yes or no.
From the Centelles Palace in Barcelona, headquarters of the IEA, Aragonès made it clear that the priority option for the vote is to channel it through article 92 of the Constitution. He provides that political decisions of special importance can be dealt with through a referendum. “There are solid legal arguments to maintain that Article 92 of the Constitution does not raise serious objections of unconstitutionality,” the IEA report states.
Even so, the literal meaning of the constitutional text is that of a “consultative referendum of all citizens”, so the two parties should mark the degree of linkage of the referendum and its universe. For Aragonès, the clarity agreement that he has been proposing since 2022 would be the ideal scenario for this task. The document itself prepared by Ridao – which was based on the previous studies presented in October by an advisory council for the clarity agreement – assumes that the results would open the door “simply to a negotiation in good faith between the territorial actors and to an eventual implementation of the results, if necessary, within the framework of constitutional and international legality.”
“Voting on independence is possible in the current legislative framework and is only a matter of political will, like amnesty,” Aragonès argued. The president wants to present his proposal in the next edition of the dialogue table, but he admitted that his continuity depends entirely on the results of the Parliament elections on May 12.
Article 92 is the priority route, but the report foresees alternatives, such as a reform of organic law 2/1980 on the regulation of the different modalities of referendum or the delegation of state functions to authorize referendums through article 150.2 of the Constitution. .
Aragonès's proposal does not set a percentage of participation for it to be validated, nor a minimum of 55% votes in favor in a referendum to obtain independence. It is thus opposed to the option defended by ERC in its last political presentation, which establishes 55% favorable votes and 50% participation, similar to the referendum in Montenegro.
