Assemblea Nacional Catalana

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Assemblea Nacional Catalana , often also referred to by the acronym ANC (German Catalan National Assembly ) is a separatist citizens' movement whose goal is the independence of Catalonia from Spain. It was founded on March 10, 2012 in Barcelona . Elisenda Paluzie has been president since March 2018; she replaced Jordi Sànchez , who had headed the ANC until then and who has beensentenced to imprisonmentsince October 2017 for his role in supporting the independence referendum of October 1, 2017, which the Spanish Constitutional Court classified as illegal.

founding

On the one hand, the ANC sees itself as the successor to the Catalan National Council (Consell Nacional de Catalunya) ; This came into being during the Franco dictatorship and aimed at restoring freedoms and democracy and the right to self-determination of the citizens of Catalonia. The organization emerged from the so-called “Independence Surveys” that were carried out in Catalonia from 2009 to 2011. The first survey of this type took place in the town of Arenys de Munt , in the Catalan region of Maresme. The polls were so-called “referendums” organized by civil society without any support from institutions. The citizens were asked the following question: “Do you agree that Catalonia will become an independent, democratic, social and constitutional state integrated in the European Union?” Several voting rounds followed (December 13, February 28, April 25, etc.) , and the last one took place on April 10, 2010 in Barcelona. Around 900,000 people took part.

On September 13, 2009, a group of independence advocates decided to unite the various aspirations of former independence movements in order to constitute a new, common citizens' movement. The group contacted other historical proponents, and together they built the spiritual framework for the new movement. This collaboration resulted in the “ Declaration of Foundation” (Declaració Fundacional) and the “Plan of Procedure” (Full de Ruta) . Both documents were adopted at the “National Summit for Your State” that took place on April 30, 2011 in the Congress Hall of Barcelona. 1,500 people attended the event and it was decided to create a standing committee and a secretariat. Its responsibility was to lay the foundation stone for the future Catalan National Assembly founded on March 10, 2012.

From then on, large rallies organized by the ANC took place on September 11th, as this is the Catalan "national holiday", the Diada . This day commemorates the surrender of Barcelona and its defeat after the siege by the troops of Philip V de Bourbon in 1714, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession and led to the centralization of the Spanish state. For Catalonia it meant the loss of certain regional citizenship rights ( Constitucions ) and, with the enactment of the Royal Decree of Nueva Planta , the dissolution of its particular institutions, the introduction of the laws of Castile and a loss of the position of the Catalan language .

Actions

"The Road to Independence," which began on June 30, 2012, was the organization's first large-scale action since the ANC was founded. Hundreds of activities took place, mobilizing thousands of people across the country week after week. The highlight was a large-scale rally in Barcelona with 1.5 million participants on September 11, 2012, united under the motto "Catalonia, new state in Europe". This demonstration and various opinion polls indicated a bourgeois majority in favor of independence and moved the separatist parties to increasingly act for an independent state.

On September 14, 2012, there was a meeting of representatives of the Catalan National Assembly and the President of the Generalitat de Catalunya , Artur Mas . The ANC campaigned for a referendum in the form of elections to the Catalan Parliament. The following week, negotiations between the President of the Generalitat and the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on the so-called “fiscal pact”, which should give Catalonia more tax autonomy, failed . In view of the outcome of the negotiations, early elections for the Catalan Parliament have been called for November 25, 2012. The election results led to a majority of MPs in favor of holding a referendum on the independence of Catalonia (87 in favor, 28 against, 20 abstentions).

The following year the ANC went one step further with the “Catalan Way”. A human chain that continuously crossed the 400 kilometers of the Catalan coast from El Pertús to Alcanar on September 11, 2013 and mobilized more than 1.6 million people, exceeded all expectations and by far met the logistical and organizational challenge. With the participation of more than 20 percent of the population, the so-called Via Catalana became the largest public action since the fall of the Berlin Wall. With this human chain, the compromise of the Catalan government to call a survey on independence in 2014 and to announce a fixed date and a specific question before the end of 2013 was confirmed. On the same morning of September 11, 2013, the President of the Generalitat, Artur Mas, and the Vice-President, Joana Ortega, received a delegation from the ANC with its President, Carme Forcadell , who asked them to hold a referendum on independence with a clear question, so that the Catalan people can express themselves clearly and democratically in one ballot.

The Catalan human chains also took place beyond the borders of Catalonia. Between August 1 and September 11, 116 smaller human chains were carried out in over 50 countries.

Role in the Catalonia crisis from 2017

The ANC was also a driving force in the run-up to the controversial (and illegal by the Spanish judiciary) independence referendum in Catalonia on October 1, 2017 , where it played a key role in the organization of the election and the mass rallies held in this context; The ANC also played a prominent role as a vocal supporter of independence in the subsequent Catalonia crisis .

On October 16, 2017, the President of the ANC, Jordi Sànchez, together with Jordi Cuixart , the head of Òmnium Cultural , were taken into custody by order of the Spanish judiciary; They were accused of public rioting, on September 20 and 21, in the run-up to the referendum, as ringleaders by organizing 40,000 people through social networks to hinder the work of the police; The crowd protested against the arrest of the organizers of the referendum ordered by the judiciary, deliberately causing property damage and wanting to prevent a house search by the Consejería de Economía . Proponents of independence describe this decision as repression and the two activists as "political prisoners". In the trial of Jordi Sànchez and eleven co-defendants, the verdict was issued in October 2019; Sànchez was sentenced to nine years in prison. Elisenda Paluzie, who replaced Jordi Sànchez at the head of the ANC after his arrest, calls for new elections in Catalonia after a possible conviction of the accused, which should inevitably lead to the independence of Catalonia with a majority of separatist votes, and criticized the regional government under Quim Torra as not sufficiently uncompromising.

Web pages

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ La Vanguardia: Elisenda Paluzie sustituye a Jordi Sànchez al frente de la ANC , March 24, 2018, accessed on April 4, 2018 (Spanish)
  2. ↑ El Pais: La juez envía a la cárcel a Jordi Sànchez y Jordi Cuixart, líderes de ANC y de Òmnium, por sedición , October 16, 2017, accessed on October 21, 2017 (Spanish)
  3. ↑ Thomas Urban: Catalonia conflict - disbelief, indignation and anger. Retrieved June 30, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Ediciones El País: Quién es quién en el juicio al procés catalán. October 14, 2019, accessed October 26, 2019 (Spanish).
  5. ↑ La Vanguardia: La ANC exigirá a Torra que convoque elecciones justo después de la sentencia - La entidad dice en un documento que el Govern deriva en la “decadencia de ambiciones” , June 1, 2019 (Spanish)