The father of canadian clarity lawthe political scientist and then Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Stéphane Dion, started from a basic principle and that is Father Aragones clings to the holding of a referendum in Catalonia: any process of secession needs rules, legal protection and negotiation.

Approved in 2000, the standard designed for Quebec aims, in short, to know what can and cannot be done. The problem is that Spain is not Canada. And that is why the response that the president of the Generalitat received from La Moncloa is the same slam that the socialist Miquel Iceta or the former deputy of the comuns Xavier Domènech got when they proposed this same route. Nor is he the first ERC leader to defend it. Roger Torrent did it as Speaker of Parliament and the success was the same.

Here, as Dion recognized in this interview, Article 2 of the Constitution, that of “the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation”, limits any negotiation in a way that the Canadian does not. While in Canada it was understood that Quebec had the jurisdiction to hold a consultation that would serve to initiate negotiations and that in fact they had already held two before having the clarity law, in Spain the simple fact to lift it is to open a box of thunder. Sovereignty and indivisibility are the two main arguments used by many constitutionalists to reject this option for Catalonia. The courts are also not the same. The Canadian Supreme showed it by showing a flexibility that would be unthinkable in the Spanish judicial system.

When the Canadian government asked the Supreme Court (which wields constitutional power albeit with less power) for clarification in preparation for a third referendum, the judges ruled that if the Quebec executive offered citizens a clear question on independence and the majority of Quebecers vote in favour, there would be a constitutional obligation to negotiate the legal changes that would allow this. Canadian law gives the House of Commons in Ottawa the power to decide whether the referendum question is sufficiently clear and, if it finds the wording misleading, it must be reworded. This is important because the one who was raised in 95 was complex to say the least: “Do you agree that Quebec should be sovereign after having made a formal offer to Canada for a new economic and political association under the bill respecting the future of Quebec and agreement signed on June 12, 1995?

The Clarity Act also allows the House of Commons (the equivalent of our Congress of Deputies) to decide the percentage needed for secession to take place. The subsequent Quebec interpretation defends that to win the referendum they had to get 50% + 1 of the vote. For the moment everything remained theoretical since after the votes held in 1980 and 1995, and once the clarity law and that of the Parliament of Quebec had been approved, no other referendum took place. For some Catalan separatist sectors, this is proof that the rule was designed to discourage secessionism and that is why they reject the path proposed again today by ERC. Whether true or not, the demobilizing effect on the Quebec independence movement is obvious.

Aragonès’ proposal, solemnly formulated in his speech during the general policy debate, is in fact an idea that has been hovering over Catalan politics for a decade. And this was not only defended by the pro-independence sectors. The PSC debated this in one of its political presentations in 2016 as an alternative to a possible failure of the constitutional reform it defended as plan A. Despite the fact that the Catalan socialists opted in their 2012 electoral program for an “agreed, legal and agreed” consultation with the State, this option disappeared from its later documents. Current minister and for years head of the PSC Miquel Iceta found himself with the PSOE slamming the door every time he cited the Clarity Law as an option to consider. We still remember in the PSC how the Asturian Javier Fernández asked him for explanations during a federal commission held in July 2016 and demanded that he choose between the party and a referendum (as if it were things incompatible).

The Catalan socialists have long since stopped looking at Canada and no one doubts that with Salvador Illa at the helm, they will side with the PSOE in rejecting Aragonès’ request. On the other hand, the commons have defended and defended that only a norm such as the law of clarity can serve to advance in a resolution of this conflict. Before resuming teaching, the deputy at the time in Congress, Xavier Domènech, claimed it forcefully during his candidacy for the legislative elections. He placed a two-thirds supermajority of Congress, the same as required by the Statute, as the percentage for the standard to be approved in the Lower House.

Aragonès has two problems to make his proposal succeed. The first is the lack of unity in the independence movement. Four years ago, also coinciding with a general policy debate, Parliament rejected a motion for a resolution by the group of municipalities on a “clarity pact”. He received only the votes in favor of Catalunya en Comú Podem and of the Republicans. Junts and CUP abstained while Ciudadanos, PSC and PP voted against.

The second is that on the other side, there is also a majority that does not agree. The president of the Generalitat says he will not give up but the government of Pedro Sánchez took only half an hour this Tuesday to exclude the Canadian route. La Moncloa insists that the lane is the dialogue table despite the fact that, as they recognize powerless in ERC, for the moment it has not been used to debate a specific proposal beyond good words.