The ERC bases have endorsed with a 96.7% of the votes its ‘road map’ for the next four years, which includes the proposal for a clear agreement on a referendum agreed with a minimum participation of 50% and a threshold of 55% in favor of ‘yes’‘ to declare independence.
With 7 votes against, 11 abstentions and 632 upvotesthe militancy has endorsed the political presentation of ERC for the next four years at the 29th Training Congress, which was held this Saturday in Lleida.
The approved paper also defends “overlapping strategies with the Spanish left with the other nations without a State, and especially with the pro-sovereignty organizations of the rest of the ‘Countries of Catalonia’.
The paper has also introduced some changes in the bloc on the referendum proposal: it proposes declaring independence when there is a victory in favor of yes —before he said a “clear” victory of the yes-– and specifies that the answer to the question for the referendum on independence should be ‘Yes-No’.
After the changes via amendments, the paper affirms that an eventual victory of the yes should give rise to a procedure of “peer-to-peer” negotiation between the Government and the Government, and reinforces the role of European and international mediation in the process.
Clarity Agreement
In addition, throughout the text changes have been made to specify that the referendum to which the presentation refers is ‘self determination’ and to specify that the clarity agreement is the “main” way –not the only one– for Catalonia to vote in an effective referendum.
A paragraph has also been added that recognizes the participation of parties, entities and movements to participate in the public debate on the referendum to obtain “the maximum consensus on the proposal”.
Another new point includes that ERC will urge the non-independence Catalan forces to participate in the debate on the clarity agreement, “in the same way that ERC does not have to shy away from the debate on its alternative proposals”.
In total they have been received 265 amendments, which have been debated in territorial congresses and sectoral assemblies. More than a hundred passed the debate process and have been accepted or included through transactions. Regarding withdrawing the reference to Montenegro in terms of international experiences of self-determination referendums, it has finally been rejected.
Oriol Junqueras: “We don’t know how to see other paths”
ERC leader, oriol junquerashas claimed this Saturday that the clarity agreement defended by his party is the formula for independenceand has asked the independence movement to join it: “We do not know how to see other paths.”
“It is not a rhetorical appeal. It is a call from the deepest conviction that if we collaborate we have a path of success ahead of us”, he said at the closing of the 29th ERC Congress in Lleida before his bases, who have endorsed with 96.7% of the votes the political paper of the party for the next four years.
Junqueras has affirmed, implicitly alluding to Junts, that other parties have not made any alternative proposal to that of ERC: “This it is not a reproachUnlike. it’s an opportunity to rebuild democratic majorities, committed to republican values”.
Position in budget negotiation
The republican leaders have also defended their position in the negotiation of the Budgets of the Generalitat: Aragonès –applauded by the bases– has thanked his party for the “maturity and empathy” with the decision of give in to the request of the PSC to execute the B-40, a project that ERC had always opposed.
In fact, the political paper itself includes in the block on the environment “anachronistic projects” the Fourth Beltway on the B-40 del Vallès (Barcelona) and the expansion of the Barcelona Airport proposed by Aena, two conditions of the PSC to support the accounts.
Sources present in the debate of the paper have explained that one of the militants has intervened to defend, in an ecological key, that the B-40 must not be “bargaining currency” andn Budget negotiation.
According to the same sources, the party leadership has shown understanding of this position and has argued that sometimes it is necessary to assume “contradictions” to defend the common interest, embodied in the Budgets.
In her speech, the Deputy General Secretary and ERC Spokesperson, Marta Vilalta, He has defended the complex decisions that ERC has made for responsibility with the Budgets, in his words, and has claimed to go with the “head held high” in the face of what he has described as a lesson in generosity.
