Catalan parliamentary group Together for Catalonia (JxCat) is going ahead with its plan to invest Carles Puigdemont as new president of Catalonia. It will attempt to do so before May 14th - and without Puigdemont himself being present in parliament. The JxCat group reached this accord at a meeting held in Berlin on Saturday. The ability to invest the exiled JxCat leader as new Catalan president at a distance was provided by the reformed Law of Presidency passed in the parliament on Friday.
The decision to move forward was announced by JxCat spokesperson Eduard Pujol at the conclusion of the Berlin meeting. According to Pujol, parliamentary speaker Roger Torrent will have to open a round of conversations with the parliamentary parties and propose the name of Puigdemont. If the investiture of the exiled president is not possible, says Pujol, a second option - also involving a long-distance swearing-in - would be Jordi Sànchez, the JxCat number two, who has been imprisoned on remand more than 6 months and has been refused permission to appear in parliament for the investiture vote. If neither of these two candidates is possible, a fourth candidate would be proposed, the so-called Plan D. Pujol stressed that JxCat does not want a new Catalan election to be called, which would happen if a new Catalan president were not sworn in this month.
However, the process cannot be set in motion until the changed law is published in the official Catalan gazette. The parliamentary bureau plans to send the text of the reform, once translated, to Madrid on Monday afternoon, as it needs to be signed by Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy, in his role as the official head of the Catalan government since the Madrid government took over direct rule of Catalonia under article 155.
After that, the Spanish government's announced appeal against the reform of the Law of Presidency will not be the only obstacle to be overcome. On 23rd March, the Constitutional Court accepted for hearing the appeal made against the first attempt to invest Puigdemont as president, and this was interpreted as the definitive suspension of any such possibility.
However, JxCat's view on this is that with the reform of the Law of Presidency, the situation has changed and thus the earlier suspension will not affect the latest proposal, as it has been raised in response to a different legal situation.
JxCat doesn't want new elections
Explaining the JxCat plans, Pujol underlined that JxCat does not want to call another Catalan election, but that the deadline for swearing in a new president is 22nd May, and so there is still margin for this new investiture attempt until 14th May, which he has called the "final date".
The attempt to reelect Carles Puigdemont as president will be accompanied by some specific political actions. In the first place, a special commissioner will be created to oversee the ending of the article 155 implementation - including hearing the claims and statements of all those who believe they have been affected by the suspension of self-government. As well, Parliament will create a commission of inquiry into 155, after months without any parliamentary control on decisions that have affected the daily life of Catalans.
The JxCat meeting, which lasted more than three hours, began with an address from Puigdemont, followed by participation from the JxCat MPs. From time to time, applause was heard from outside the meeting room.
On Friday, the Catalan Parliament passed the reform of the Law of Presidency, with the votes of the three pro-independence political groups, JxCat, ERC and the CUP, to try to make possible investiture of a candidate as president, without the candidate him or herself being present. The Spanish government, as it had already announced, asked Spain's Council of State for a report on appealing the law, and thus the state's legal services already have the appeal prepared.