If his separatist party wins a majority of the seats on Sunday, the Catalan president, Artur Mas, has vowed to lead a transitional government that would begin the process of creating an independent state, with a mandate to declare independence by 2017.
Lasting no longer than 18 months, his government would be guided by the steps outlined in the Junts pel Sí party’s 125-page electoral programme. The first would be a declaration, made within days of taking office, proclaiming the beginning of the process to break away from Spain.
From there, Mas said his priority would be to sit down with Madrid and the European institutions “to talk and to negotiate and to reach agreements”. The focus of the talks will be on addressing issues such as the management of shared borders, the energy grid and the Ebro river basin.
If Madrid refuses talks with the region, Mas said that Catalonia could retaliate by walking away from its share of the public debt, accounting for roughly a third of Spain’s total debt.
Mas’s government also plans to begin drafting a constitution for Catalonia, hoping to draw on citizen participation to inform its content.
The creation of state structures will also begin – from a diplomatic service to a central bank – to be ready in time for the proclamation of a new Catalan state. “We have some state structures right now,” Mas said during the campaign, pointing to the region’s public healthcare, education and police service. “But we lack others.”
Plans for the first of these new state structures, a regional tax agency modelled on that of Sweden and Australia, was halted by Spain’s constitutional court earlier this month after the court agreed to hear a challenge lodged by the central government in Madrid.
The same fate could befall many of the state structures envisioned by Mas. With just days left before polling, the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, said Madrid would use the full power of the judiciary to block any move towards Catalan independence. “We would go to the constitutional court. And that’s the way it is. Full stop,” he told broadcaster Onda Cero.
Spain’s governing People’s party (PP) recently introduced an urgent reform giving the country’s constitutional court the power to sanction elected officials and civil servants who fail to comply with its rulings with fines of up to €30,000 (£22,000) and suspensions. As the bill was presented before the country’s lawmakers, Xavier García Albiol, the PP leader in Catalonia, left little doubt that it was aimed at quelling Catalan separatism. “This is a very clear message for those who want to break up Spain: the joke is over,” he said.
The PP is expected to flex its absolute majority in parliament to have the bill approved in the days following the Catalan elections.
But Madrid’s attempts to shut down Catalonia’s path to independence could backfire. Junts pel Sí has outlined in its programme that, should Madrid seek to block independence, “the Catalan government and parliament will proceed with the proclamation of independence and the passing of the legal transition act”, suggesting Madrid’s obstinance could simply serve to accelerate the separation process.
