I don’t usually post news like this but this is important. Since yesterday (May 14th 2019) we are officially under Climate Emergency.
The Government of Catalonia has released a climate manifesto and has promised to create a programme to make Catalonia “run 100% on renewable energy, without carbon or nuclear centrals, and neutral in emission of gasses that cause the greenhouse effect”.
I hope this will be implemented soon, starting by ending the nuclear power plants we still have in Ascó. I also hope other countries will follow, as climate change is an emergency to us all and all the world needs to collaborate.
(Link to tweet)
UPDATE, June 27th 2019: Surprise surprise! (not at all)
The Catalan Gov also pledged to end nuclear power plants by 2027 and were working on replacing them with renewable energy, and banned fracking which has heavily hurted our country for decades, especially poorer rural areas, for the benefit of multinational companies.
But, as always, the Spanish Government decided we can’t do that!
Climate emergency is not a thing anymore, the plan to fight it is cancelled, fracking is legal again, and we can’t dismantle nuclear power plants. And by the way, this comes right when there is a huge uncontrolled fire destroying the south of Catalonia and advancing toward the nuclear power plants.
The last decade of politics in Catalonia can easily be summed up by this:
Catalonia’s Government: our local parliament voted to introduce a new social law to make Catalonia a better place :)
Central Spanish Government: you can’t do that! Because Spain is against it, we don’t care about the Catalan’s opinions, and the more we tell Catalans to fuck off the more votes we’ll get in the next Spanish election! Haha losers!
I REALISE THIS POST GOT LONG BUT PLEASE READ IT AND YOU’LL UNDERSTAND WHAT REALLY IS GOING ON.
These are some laws approved by the Catalan Parliament and banned by the Spanish Supreme Court in the past few years:
Law of Housing Emergency and Energy Poverty: would stop any eviction unless the responsible of the eviction had a social security appartment ready for the evicted family/person for free or at a very low price fixed by the government, and made sure all families have water, electricity and gas even if they can’t pay for them and businesses can’t close their sources for not being able to pay (and this was during the years of the economical crisis where so many people were being evicted and even committing suicide because of it). Spain considered it unconstitutional. Different urgent decisions to help people in poverty during the crisis were also considered unconstitutional.
Tax on Empty Houses: banks and other owners of building where nobody lives are encouraged to give them for social secutiry housing or pay a heavy tax. Spain considered it unconstitutional.
Law of Effective Equality Between Men and Women: a law that established equal pay and
Law of Asking the People via Referendums: a law that wanted to implement referendums often, where the citizens of Catalonia could decide directly on different matters like voting in favour or against new laws and policies. It was a step closer to direct democracy, and Spain considered it unconstitutional.
Law of Non-Referendum People’s Consultations: with a referendum whatever people voted must be implemented by the Catalan gov, after referendums were turned down by Spain they tried to introduce popular consultations, which are votings on different matters where the result is not mandatory by law to be applied but serves as a guide to the government to know what people want.
Law of Hospitality with Immigrants and Returned People in Catalonia: planned to create many more services to make it easier for immigrants arriving to Catalonia, especially the ones with low income. The Catalan government would also create agencies to give more resources to immigrants in specific situations such as refugees. Spain considered it unconstitutional.
Law on Animal Protection: Spain forced them to erase some articles, considering them too much.
Law on Occitan Aranese: wanted to create more protection for the Occitan Aranese language, a minority language spoken in a valley in the north of Catalonia, and make more public media in their language. Only a part was allowed in a second try last year, Spain considered the rest unconstitutional.
Declaration on the Right to Self-Determination: Catalonia to be recognised as a nation with the right to vote on its future as an independent country from Spain. Catalonia also recognised Val d’Aran (the valley where Aranese language is spoken and where they have Aranese culture) as its own nation with right to self-determination who can decide via referendum any time they want to become independent from Catalonia. Spain considered both unconstitutional.
Tax on companies who release nitrogen oxid and other gases and particles cosidered unhealthy and damaging to nature, especially companies working in commercial aviation and nuclear power plants.
Tax on Touristic Businesses: a tax that would bring money to sustainable tourism and fight against massification. Spain considered it unconstitutional.
Different laws protecting consumers, especially low-income people fooled by banks. Again unconstitutional.
Many laws that wanted to regulate how long businesses can open to try to stop the exploitation of retail workers that are a bit long to explain in this post. It has been tried with different wording and different characteristics many times, Spain considered them unconstitutional.
And those are only a few that I considered most relevant. I didn’t include some labour regulation laws that would be very benefittial to workers but are too long to explain in this post that already got too long.
Do you understand now why Catalan people want independence? And I didn’t even get to the linguistic, cultural and economic discrimination, nor the political prisoners.
