With voters heading for the poll in referendum, what would a victory mean for breakaway region and rest of Spain?
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.
Read more:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/27/catalan-independence-what-if-separatists-win
