Government plan

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Government plan

Preamble

The Council for the Republic aims to secure the establishment of the Catalan Republic, in accord with the mandate from the citizens of Catalonia expressed in the Declaration of Independence of 27 October. Constituted in the Palace of the Generalitat 30 October 2018, in fulfilment of what was decided in the Agreement to invest MHP Joaquim Torra, the Council finds its source of legitimacy in that mandate, defends it and gives it continuity. In consequence, from the freedom of Europe, the Council acts on all fronts necessary for the right of self-determination for Catalans, already exercised on 1/O, to be fully recognized and respected. The Council for the Republic is the first stone of a new independent state in Europe, namely, Catalonia. From 1/O, Catalonia stated out on the road to the Republic and the Council exists to help finish what we started on that day with the help of everyone. And, as a result, it exercises its role as legitimate representative of the Catalan nation and its wish for independence before the international community.

In its foundational phase, the Council was built from the government in exile and its President, Carles Puigdemont, as direct depositaries of the legitimacy that came from the 1/O referendum and 27/O Declaration.

Nevertheless, the Council aspires to represent the whole diversity of the republican movement and, consequently, its different bodies are open to all the political forces and organisations of civil society with headquarters in Catalonia that are committed to establishing the Catalan Republic, from the desire to make a plurality of players compatible with strategic unity. Thus, the Council develops its strategies with a recognition of the work realized so far by the other players in the independence movement and in cooperation with them, based on the conviction that all are necessary and that actions must be articulated jointly with them.

As a republican institution, the Council understands its action to implement the mandate of 1/O as a stimulus to action directed to that same end by autonomous institutions – the Parliament and Government of the Generalitat – as institutions chosen in free elections, from a census comprising the whole of the population of Catalonia, and the legitimacy of which as depositaries of the sovereignty of the Catalan nation comes from tradition centuries old.

Each and every one of the projects detailed in this Government Plan must be understood as means and instruments at the service of the Council’s unique mission: the securing of the Catalan Republic.

GOVERNMENT PLAN

Areas of action

Area of domestic political action

Constituted in the Palace of the Generalitat on 30 October, 2018, within the framework of the Accord for the Investiture of Joaquim Torra MP, the objective of the Council for the Catalan Republic is to create the foundations for the formation of the Catalan Republic, in line with the mandate of the citizens of Catalonia as expressed by the referendum of 1 October, 2017.

In order to organize its activities the Council must set up the necessary bodies: the Governing Council, the Assembly of Representatives and the Citizens’ Electoral Roll. To this end the founding Assembly of Representatives – comprising, as established by the Council’s provisional regulations, the members of the Parliament of Catalonia who gave their support to the last investiture, together with all those others who wish to collaborate – must approve two initial norms: the rules for the Council for the Republic and the electoral requirements for the election of the Assembly of Representatives. Once the electoral requirements have been approved, elections can be held to the first Assembly of Representatives elected by direct suffrage of the members of the Council, namely, the citizens registered in the Citizens’ Electoral Roll.

The political participation by Council members must become a distinctive feature of the Council for the Republic. The Council must be an example of a new democratic culture. We understand the citizenry in the republican sense as an active citizenry: citizens are those individuals who get involved in issues within their community, who collaborate and aren’t simply motivated by individual interest, but are committed to the common good.

Consequently, the Council must become a highly participatory institution and laboratory for the nourishing of a new democratic culture. It will thus actively promote the tools for a direct democracy that new technologies make available to us. We want the Council to learn from the experience of political systems that have made the consultation of citizens and direct democracy a democratic routine, not so much as a strategy as an end in itself.

The Council will support the following elements that enable participation: participatory processes in policy development of policy (beginning with this Government Plan), internal consultations on matters of general political interest, consultations as regards the Council’s strategies and the independence movement as a whole, as well as the elections to the Assembly of Representatives.

3.1. The Council will encourage participation in the Constituent Debate during its participatory phase, supporting in particular its transversal, popular character and self-managing structure. At a later phase, and once the Civic and Social Forum has elaborated the core framework for a future Constitution and is presented in Parliament, the Council for the Republic will encourage the Constitution of the Catalan Republic within the parliamentary arena. If, when that time comes, the Catalan parliament doesn’t provide adequate conditions for a constituent process, the Council will promote the necessary avenues for the creation of a Constituent Assembly.

3.2 The Council will bring forward legislative proposals to the Parliament of Catalonia, which will anticipate future legislation by the Republic. These proposals will be driven either by Popular Legislative Initiatives, or by dialogue with the Parliamentary Groups of the parties who make up the Government Council. These legislative proposals will be debated by Council members who will decide on its content via a process of internal consultation.

The Local Councils for the Republic come into being as a result of initiatives by civil society – especially the ANC (Catalan National Assembly) – and municipalities with the aim of promoting the establishment of the Republic voted for in the 1-O referendum within our national territory. With the 1-O, the citizens of Catalonia once more take the initiative in building republican power from their own personal sovereignty and organize to implement the mandate from the referendum.

The Governing Council for the Republic enthusiastically welcomes these initiatives, is committed to supporting the setting up of Councils across the territory and has provided criteria to sustain direct links with them. Because the creation of areas of sovereignty from bottom to top, from neighbourhoods, towns, cities and districts is the way to advance in the construction of republican power at national level rooted in the territory and the power of the people.

Local Councils can be led by municipal councillors, municipal bodies and/or people on an individual basis. In any case, a broad consensus is necessary in terms of the political and social actions within the country. Local Councils for the Republic will sign a “Letter of Commitment” with the Council of the Republic, that will decide, among other issues, the objectives and political aims of Local Councils and the basis for their functioning, and agree a “Work-Plan” with the Council. The acceptance of this “Commitment” and the agreement on the “Work-Plan” will imply their formal recognition as Local Councils by the Council for the Republic.

Potentially, the Council is the sum of all the citizens committed to the Catalan Republic. Citizens resident in Catalonia, in the rest of the Catalan-speaking countries, but also all those citizens of Europe and the world who support the cause of the Catalan Republic. For this reason, the electoral roll is open not only to residents of Catalonia, but also to all those citizens of the international community who share its aims and its values.

The Council will instigate a permanent campaign to promote registration on the electoral roll, mainly aimed at citizens of Catalonia and the other Catalan-speaking countries and, especially, at all those who voted on 1-O, 2017. Growth of the Council’s citizen base will be a decisive factor in establishing its ability to act politically, as well as its financial capacity, which impacts very directly on its ability to act. To sustain this permanent membership drive, the Council will have recourse to that most valuable activist body, the “Let’s Make Councils” network of volunteers.

Area of international political action

International action is one of the main reasons the Council exists. In order to implement fully the will of the citizens as expressed in the 1-O referendum, it will be necessary, among other things, to secure the international recognition of Catalonia as an independent Republic. International action to secure that recognition must be a political priority of any strategy that aims to bring to fruition Catalonia’s drive for independence and the Council must lead this international action.

The strategy for the international recognition of Catalonia requires a permanent conversation with a wide range of players on the European and international stage (parties, governments, parliaments etc). It also requires the consolidation of alliances and support that the Catalan independence movement currently enjoys and the creation of new alliances within the European Union and internationally. It requires, moreover, contacts with diplomatic representatives and other international observers interested in the Catalan independence process.

Catalonia bases its independence process on the demand for its right to self-determination. Similarly, Catalonia isn’t alone at this current time in making its demand for the right to self-determination the central axis of its political activity: many other countries around the world, some in Europe, are now immersed in their own movements for national emancipation. From Catalonia it is vital to encourage alliances with these other peoples and to build an international movement for self-determination.

The right of the self-determination of peoples is an evolving right, that has gone through diverse stages since it appeared on the scene at the beginning of the 20th century and is today the object of intense debate, both in the academic world and the world of international institutions. Catalonia can play a leadership role in advancing this right beyond the limitations imposed in the second half of the 20th century. To this end the Council will work on the following initiatives:

An international consultative paper with a case-study of Catalonia as subject to the right to self-determination.
Collaboration with centres researching the right of self-determination throughout the world.
A presence in international fora and international debates related to the right to self-determination.
A role as observer in current processes of self-determination throughout the world.
Alliance building with democratic and non-violent movements that demand the right to self-determination.
The creation, based on the example of Catalonia, of an international framework of reference related to the right of self-determination that can also be useful to other nations in similar situations.

Beyond the strategy for the international recognition of the Catalan Republic, knowledge and recognition of Catalonia in the international sphere has changed radically since the 1-O referendum and as a result of the Declaration of Independence of 27-O. Catalonia is starting to become, as a consequence, a de facto political subject within the international community, alongside the de jure political subjects (the states) it comprises.
It is thus essential for Catalonia, as a political subject, to have its own voice on the international stage. To this end, the Council, from its position as the legitimate representative of the Catalan nation and its desire for independence before the international community, will seek to participate and be an active presence in all those international fora, developments and initiatives that are pertinent to Catalonia or where Catalonia can present its own proposals and perspectives on the great challenges faced by society internationally (climate change, inequality and poverty, the protection of human rights, financial and economic stability, the regulation of international trade, the protection of linguistic and cultural diversity, etc.)

In order to implement the strategies and initiatives described in the previous projects (13, 14 & 15), the Council must expand its own network of foreign delegations, that will allow it to consolidate stable relationships with the institutions and civil societies of those states that are particularly strategic in relation to its own objectives. This diplomatic network – part public, part civil diplomacy – will allow it to carry forward with the necessary resources the whole task of internationalisation and political lobbying of the states and institutions of the European Union and the rest of the international community. This network will complement the Generalitat’s network of international Delegations and, at a time when the State has undertaken an aggressive legal strategy in order to stop or reverse the creation of these Delegations, the Council’s diplomatic network will make effective the principle according to which “the Council will reach where the Government of the Generalitat cannot.”

In order to guide and define its strategies of this diplomatic network of its own, the Council will create an advisory body (Council for Civil Diplomacy).

The citizens of Catalonia committed to self-determination, the Republic and the 1-O mandate are key players in the task of internationalisation that the Council is leading. States that have an intelligent diplomatic strategy well into the 21st century don’t simply implement it through embassies and consulates, but also through the means of the organisations of civil society, enterprises and, increasingly, through citizens themselves. From the very first moment the independence movement has found its main driving force in citizen organisations at home and abroad. An outstanding example is the activity of the ANC’s Assemblies abroad.
As a result, the Council will design a strategy for international action the protagonists and drivers of which will be citizens themselves. This strategy will target not only institutions, but also the citizens of the countries of the EU and the rest of the international community: it is all about articulating international activity “from (Catalan) citizen to (foreign) citizen.” Some examples of activity in this respect are: the European Citizens’ Initiative before European institutions (one million signatures in a minimum of seven EU countries) with the ANC, “10,000 ambassadors campaign”, support for the activities of the Foreign Friends of Catalonia, etc.

International legal action

The international judicial front has become one of the main, decisive sites for the strategy of internationalisation the Council is leading. Indeed, this is the front where some of the most important victories have been won over the last two years (before courts in EU countries, like Germany, Belgium or Scotland, at the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg or the United Nations Human Rights Council , concretely its working group for arbitrary detentions).
The active defence of the individual rights of political and social leaders and activists who fight peacefully on behalf of the Republic, the exposure of infringements of their basic rights, as well as the defence of the collective rights of Catalans before international courts or bodies is one of the activities prioritized by the Council on the international front. The Council will thus promote or support all those legal initiatives that may be undertaken to this end before the national courts of EU countries, the EUCJ, the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg, United Nations bodies and other international courts which at a given time may be competent to deal with matters related to the Catalan cause.

In a manner complimentary to specifically judicial activity, the Council will also initiate actions before institutions and organisations within the legal sphere (universities, study centres, public institutions, lawyers’ associations and colleges), both at European and international level, with the aim of publicizing the legal and judicial dimension of the situation in Catalonia and deepening related discussions. Some of the first initiatives envisaged in this respect are: reports by academic experts on the trials of political and social leaders responsible for the 1/O before the Supreme Court, a meeting of the different legal teams that have intervened on the international legal front, to help consolidate the international network of lawyers working on behalf of the cause of Catalonia. It must be recognized that this Area (international legal action) and the previous one (international political action) are clearly complementary, to the extent that the Council’s legal actions in the international arena assume their full meaning when they act to advance the political aims of its international strategy.

Economic and technological action

The actions of citizens who support the Republic must not necessarily be limited to participation in politics and elections, or their activism in the framework of social mobilisation and non-violent acts of civil disobedience. Action in the economic sphere is also a practical and necessary instrument in the framework of a democratic, non-violent struggle to fully install the Republic, to the extent that economic players have power that can impact decisively on the political sphere and that a good number of the economic players in Catalonia and Spain are not politically neutral. Thus, the free, peaceful action of citizens in the economic sphere can help weaken economic players who use their power to obstruct the cause of the Republic and to boost others who assume a neutral or favourable stance.

In this area, the Council proposes two priority strategies:

a) To support and promote the ANC’s “Strategic consumption” policy to reduce the dependency of consumers – both citizens, companies and public institutions – on the big IBEX-35 corporations. It is necessary to be very conscious that the customer is the last link in the economic system and should be the lever of change for a new model of responsible production and consumption aimed at sustaining resources and social justice.

b) To foster the creation or growth in the economic sphere to advance the establishment of the Catalan Republic. In particular, the Council will encourage or support initiatives aimed at constructing a network of services (market place) that promotes a productive fabric inspired by the founding principles and values of the Republic – efficiency and innovation, inclusion and equality, democracy and cooperation, among others – and will articulate the relationship and rights of Council members as regards this network.

Similarly, the ability of citizens to act in the financial sphere can also be an efficient means of advancing the Republic. Today there is constant innovation in the financial sphere, thanks to the interaction of this sphere with digital tools: for example, the development of crypto-currencies, digital banking or fin-techs. The Council will study the following possibilities in the area of finance:

To build an instrument to provide financial services to citizens who form part of the Council, as well as supporting existing initiatives or those being created that work with the same aim of constructing financial instruments to help establish the Catalan Republic.

2. The creation of a Fund for the Republic that takes advantage of the legal security deriving from its existence outside Spanish jurisdiction and gives stability and financial robustness to the strategies leading to the full establishment of the Republic. .

The Council will create a digital document confirming the membership of all those citizens who have enrolled on the Citizens Register. This digital documental will establish the list of rights conferred by membership of the Council: rights to political participation, rights linked to the services offered by the financial initiatives connected to the Council, to the financial process (see Projects XX and XX), etc. and will function as a portal to the application that, from an operational perspective, will allow these rights to be exercised.
To the extent that the exercise of these rights requires use of personal data of Council members, the digital document for membership to the Council will be based on sovereign digital identity (SDI). Thanks to the paradigm of sovereign digital identity and technologies of decentralised information (blockchain) we will empower citizens, by ensuring that they, and not public administration or private corporations, own their private data and can manage access of third parties to this data in a free and secure way.

The development of robust technological tools is a necessary precondition for ensuring that the activities of Council members are viable, as the previous projects are being realized. It is necessary to have safe, trustworthy technological tools, whether for enrolment on the Citizens Register, everyday communication with Council members, political participation in direct consultations or in ongoing deliberations, participation in elections to the Assembly of Representatives, interaction in the framework of the services offered by the economic initiatives linked to the Council, or for use of the financial process.
It is vital that these technological tools fulfil a series of requisites: accessibility and simplicity for users, protection as regards a possible system collapse, the guarantee of the trustworthy nature of voting procedures and consultations and elections, efficient functioning and its decentralized nature {blockchain). This gives an idea of the high level of complexity in the development of these technological tools.

Cultural action

The Council will create its own range of publications, which will aim to generate contents in different languages related to the process of self-determination of Catalonia. This range of publications will mainly focus on:

a) The publication of the Council for the Republic’s official documents.

b) The diffusion of reports, dossiers and materials generated in the framework of the different Areas of the Council, in all formats.

c) The publication of books on issues related to the situation of Catalonia and its process of self-determination.

The Council, in a manner complementary and secondary to the work carried out by Catalan institutions in this area, will contribute to the international diffusion of Catalan reality through cultural action. Moreover, in its international diplomatic and legal activities it will also work to defend the linguistic rights of Catalans and expose the situation of discrimination against of the Catalan language. Finally and in the framework of its international policy of alliances, the Council will nurture the building of bridges to the cultures of other societies present in contemporary Catalonia, with the aim of acknowledging and protecting them.

Knowledge and research

The generation of studies and knowledge is crucial to the actions of the Council in at least two senses: on the one hand, to endow the basic theses of the independence project with solid intellectual foundations that strengthens its legitimacy; on the other, to have available more complex, precise data, up-to-date information and knowledge that are necessary so the political strategy for the independence movement and the decision-making are shaped with the most scientific perspectives possible. In the first, it is a matter of advancing the struggle for the narrative; in the second, advancing in the field of research.
In that sense, the Council will set up various international groups of experts in areas of interest: :

a) An international group of experts(jurists, specialists in politics, experts in political philosophy etc) on the right to self-determination as applied to the case of Catalonia.

b) An international group of experts on civil resistance and non-violent direct action.

c) An international group of experts on democratic innovation, participation, big data and civil movements.

Likewise, the Council will create a permanent Observatory on the evolution of knowledge, attitude and support of citizens of other countries, principally of the EU, on the struggle for self-determination in Catalonia.

The Council will create a programme of help for study and research with the aim of nurturing and stimulating research as regards questions strategic to the Council’s activity, including:

a) the independence process in Catalonia.
b) The right to self-determination in the 21st century.
c) The renewal of the democratic system in the context of the digital revolution.
d) The new forms of mobilisation and struggle for basic rights in the society of the 21st century.

Goverment plan