Catalonia: An intense political agenda until the end of January - Natixis

Jesus Castillo, Research Analyst at Natixis, explains that the separatist parties persist in their attempt to re-elect the former President of Catalonia at the head of the regional government despite his run to Belgium in order to avoid being arrested in Spain.

Key Quotes

“The investiture debate should take place before end January but at this stage it is still unclear how it is going to end due to legal issues regarding the situation of the candidate.”

“On 21st December’s Catalonia elections, the separatist parties reached most seats (70 out of 135) despite they lacked most votes. Ciudadanos, the non-regionalist party, emerged for the first time as the most voted party in Catalonia.”

“However, on January 17th, Roger Torrent from the Republican Left Party (ERC) has been elected as the new President of the Catalan Parliament. Yesterday he has proposed the candidacy of Carles Puigdemont, the previous President of the Catalan government (Junts per Cat – PDeCAT) to be reelected for a new term at the head of the executive. This is a major issue since he fled to Belgium to avoid being arrested in Spain as part of a legal investigation related to the illegal referendum organized on October 1st under his mandate. Thus, Carles Puigdemont would be arrested indubitably if he returns to Spain.”

“But from a regulatory side, the candidate to the confidence vote for the Presidency of the regional government needs to attend to the debate. Thus, according to legal experts, a remote conference does not comply with the functioning rules of the regional chamber. In such a case, the Spanish government has already warmed that it will appeal the decision to the Constitutional Court in order to request the invalidation of the vote if needed.”

“The investiture vote should take place on January 31st at the latest. If Carles Puigdemont remains the candidate, this would be a new challenging stage for Mariano Rajoy’s government. Indeed, it might be obliged to request the cancelling of the illegal election of the regional President. And this might be politically very costly for his party and himself. Such an extreme situation might become dangerous for the political stability of the Spanish government if it loses the support of Ciudadanos in the national Congress or if all the opposition parties supports a vote of non-confidence to overthrow his cabinet (but this is not our baseline scenario).”

“Outlook:

• If the separatist’s majority of the regional parliament is persisting in electing Carles Puigdemont without complying with the Parliament regulations sooner or later the Spanish Constitutional Court will invalidate its election. A new stage of uncertainties will then open.
• Nevertheless, we continue to believe that the separatist parties don’t want new elections. Therefore, we think that they will finally find an agreement to elect a President accordingly to the Parliament’s rules. But this might take some time. They can make last the decision until end of March. During this time, the political situation might remain quite chaotic. Thereafter their strategy remains unknown since they have several options. But once again, whatever their decision we believe that they would try to avoid new elections.”