This Thursday, October 27th, marks five years since Catalonia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) of 2017. The Catalan president who led the country to that point, Carles Puigdemont, has marked the occasion with a video message, in which he reminds Catalans that, although the declaration was never implemented, it remains valid. Puigdemont's address from his exile in Belgium is directed at "all the political actors" who made that declaration possible after the 1st October referendum, and calls on them to gather again, to take stock of the situation five years on, and assess whether "the path of dissolution of the conflict" - in reference to the current political path in Catalonia - has provided the advances that "are vital for the country". Puigdemont asserted that Catalans need to consider whether the current situation of "dependence" has "opened up hope for the future."
Puigdemont reiterates in his speech that the immediate non-application of the DUI "does not remove its validity" and "obliges us to find a way to implement it, from autonomous community or republican institutions". The president in exile argues that "it is a path that has not been attempted and for which we obtained the support of Parliament five years ago". In Puigdemont's opinion, this is "the only realistic way to achieve the independence of our nation".
Puigdemont asserted the worth of the declaration, which he himself left suspended on October 10th, 2017 in order to open a period of dialogue with the Spanish state, and defended that it was passed by Parliament "in a vote that we took consciously", while the Spanish government was perpetrating "a coup d'etat to dissolve Parliament" and dismiss the government of Catalonia with the application of direct rule from Madrid under Article 155. The application of that article "sought to paralyze the country, to harm all citizens" because it was "a general punishment and chastisement". "We knew what we were voting for, those of us who participated in the vote and the monarchist minority that did not participate made it clear that the only way they had to prevent what was being done was through non-democratic means", he added.
Puigdemont discard the possibility of dialogue with Spain
Five years ago, recalled Puigdemont, there was fear of the state's reaction and of the "harshness of the repression". The president in exile explained that "until the last moment" he did everything possible so that everyone "was aware" and remarked that one of the objectives in the decisions taken was precisely "to guarantee peace and coexistence" because it was that which allowed Catalonia to reach the 1st October.
Puigdemont took advantage of the anniversary of the UDI to insist on the fact that dialogue with the Spanish state is not possible and that, therefore, the final option has not yet been fully explored. "The independence process will only end when Catalonia is recognized as an independent state", the president in exile stressed - precisely at a time when there are many voices proclaiming that the process has died, after the break up of the pro-independence coalition and the continuing internal disagreements in the movement.
Puigdemont's distrust of the Spanish state leads him to consider that "an agreement with the state based on democratic principles is not practicable". In fact, the now-MEP considers that both the history as well as the present, "validate us" and that is why he says that there is no need to "collect more frustrations by trusting the words" that are said, because the Spanish state uses "lying, and failing to meet its obligations" as the only "politics of its relationship with Catalonia".
The president explained that his departure to exile, accompanied by other members of his government, "the most uncertain and risky route", responded to this reality of the state. "It was the only way of proposing a democratic response to the Spanish state, away from its arbitrary repression" said Puigdemont. "We had to be able to internationalize the conflict."
The position of the other pro-independence forces
Regarding the position of the pro-independence forces five years on, Puigdemont comments that the "internal division" of the pro-independence movement and the abandonment of the UDI by many who promoted it "has acted more effectively than the repression of the state itself", in terms of promoting demobilization and loss of trust.
But he stresses that, five years later, although the UDI has not been reactivated, no step has been taken to annul the suspension that he himself promoted, nor to revoke the declaration itself. At the same time, the continued existence of exile has preserved "the legitimacy of the Parliament" that took that decision. According to Puigdemont, the process "cannot abandon" the UDI, in particular because over the five year period since autumn 2017, more and more reasons for Catalan independence have emerged.