Leaked Catalan plans for independence

El País has just published details of the Catalan roadmap to independence seized by the Civil Guard after storming a number of Catalan government buildings. Authorship of the document can be traced particularly to Josep María Jové, general secretary of deputy presidency, economy, and the exchequer of the Catalan administration.

The document, which contains no date, details the separatist JxSí strategy up to now. Indeed, they expected the  Spanish government and judiciary would react as they have, creating an atmosphere of judicial and economic repression leading to ‘a democratic conflict with broad citizen support. This conflict would then generate political and economic instability, leading the state to accept the separation negotiations or a forced referendum’. It also states that ‘the political and police chiefs of the Mossos (the Catalan regional police) are totally involved in the separatist process’. It also details the plans to create a new state in two phases stages by means of a unilateral declaration of independence.

According to the document, the unilateral declaration of independence ‘shall trigger a conflict that, if well managed, may lead to statehood’ as ‘the Spanish state will not recognise the right to hold a referendum, but, if everything were lost, may hold it with the intention that we lose it’.

This resolve to steer toward conflict is made clear in another point saying that ‘the moment when there is a clear citizen determination to support it and to actively get involved, is the moment when a conservative approach should be started, slightly escalating conflict according to the State’s response, under the leadership of and in coordination with all the involved actors and without any shadow of doubt regarding actions and timing’.

The document also outlines the organs responsible for the formulation of an independence strategy. It considers a strategic committee formed by the President, the deputy President, MCPs (Members of the Catalan Parliament) from both independentist groups, and chairmen and deputy chairmen from ANC (National Catalan Assembly), Òmnium, and AMI (Association of Municipalities for Independence). The transition government would evaluate the strategic risks and will create contingency and communication tools. ‘Once this work is satisfied, it will call for an election provided they know an independentist parliament will be obtained’, the document says.

The executive committee contains the presidency and deputy presidency general secretaries, directors of development and self-government offices, a board of professional experts in process-related experts, and councilors or secretaries-general ad hoc for the concerned matters.

The appropriate timing management to achieve independence was among the priorities of the report. Page no. 41 establishes that the transition government (stage 1) shall last until September 2018 provided a separatist majority is assured for the formation of an independence government (stage 2) until September 2022. However, it is vague about the independence date, as the government ‘could declare independence the day after its constitution or the day before its dissolution’.

The roadmap sets three important goals: making majorities come together, building trust, and working with assurances. It says that ‘fulfilling the three goals is the minimum to look forward to the future with success guarantees’, stressing international credibility as ‘precipitating an independence declaration without having worked comprehensively on these values would make it little attractive in the eyes of the international community (strategy regarded internationally as scrupulously democratic and that Catalonia may be a reliable partner)’.

On the appropriate discourse to this ends they advice to strengthen it ‘in the rational and emotional reasons behind an own state, rather more than on grievances with Spain, and with a communicative strategy shared by all the sovereignist actors’. They also planned the new state structures and the laws to break away with Spain. Nominally, the former are the judicial transitority act (recently repealed by the Constitutional Court), as well as others essential to the functioning of the new state.

The plan acknowledges that they have to begin with the current structures (Mossos, technology and communications centre, etc.) and new ones (own exchequer, social protection agency, judiciary power, etc.) and that all of them must be given adequate funding and personnel. ‘We must make sure the minimum essential functioning of all the state structures to manage the disconnection and the birth of our own state’, the roadmap says. Finally, it proposes passing from the slogans ‘better together’ and ‘breaking Spain’ to ‘better friends’ and ‘helping Spain’ to persuade the undecided.

The plans should not be public, the roadmap says, but its aim is that ‘people know that it exists, that it’s doable, and that well-managed may mean either international recognition or a referendum forced with the state, but no detail shall be made public’. However, the press has outwitted this provision.

Based on the news published by El País, in Spanish: El Pais