Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya

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Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya
ERC
ERC logo 2017.svg
Party leader Oriol Junqueras
Secretary General Marta Rovira
founding March 19, 1931
Youth organization Joventuts d'Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (JERC)
Alignment
Left Social Democracy - Secessionist
Left Nationalism
Democratic Socialism
Republicanism
Feminism
Catalanism
Parliament de Catalunya
33/135
Congreso
13/350
Senado
13/266
MEPs
2/59
European party EFA
EP Group Greens / EFA
Website esquerra.cat

The Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya ( ERC ) ( German : "Republican Left of Catalonia") is a Catalan regional party that describes itself as "left of the center". It advocates a of Spain independent Catalonia one, in addition to the Autonomous Region of the region of Catalonia and Valencia , the Balearic Islands , parts of Aragon ( La Franja ) and in the South of France located north Catalonia covers. The independent Andorrais not included in this Catalonia. The Catalan-speaking city of Alghero ( Sardinia ) is not one of the " Catalan countries " by the ERC . However, some of the information on their website is also available in Sardinian .

The party was part of the ruling tripartite coalition ( Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds , ICV) from 2002 to 2010 during the VII and VIII legislative periods of the regional parliament, together with the Catalan Socialists ( Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya , PSC) and the Catalan Greens ( Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds , ICV) ( Tripartite ). In the 10th legislative period (2012–2015) the ERC tolerated a minority government of the Convergència i Unió , (CiU). After splitting the CiU (separation of CDC and UDC ) due to political differences with regard to the independence of Catalonia from Spain, the ERC closed for the parliamentary elections in Catalonia in 2015 with the CDC who led the previous government, the electoral coalition together for yes together .

history

The ERC was created in 1931 from a merger of the parties Partit Republicà Català , L'Opinió and Estat Català . In the same year it won the Catalan elections and its chairman Francesc Macià i Llussà proclaimed an independent Catalan republic. However, the Catalans had to be content with a statute of autonomy, and when Macià's successor Lluís Companys i Jover tried again only three years later to declare independence, the Catalan government was deposed and Companys was arrested for the time being.

In the national elections of 1936, the ERC supported the Popular Front ( Frente Popular ). In Catalonia she again won the elections and Companys was again Catalan President.

After the Spanish Civil War , the ERC was banned by Franco . Companys fled to France towards the end of the civil war, but was captured and extradited by the German occupying forces and executed in October 1940.

During the Franco dictatorship the ERC continued in exile and with Josep Tarradellas an ERC member was President of the Catalan government in exile. After returning from exile in 1977, Tarradellas also became the first president of the provisional regional government ( Generalitat ).

Previously, the ERC was re-approved as a party on August 2, 1977 in the course of the democratization of Spain ( transition ).

The ERC today

The ERC's popularity appeared to have increased after the turn of the millennium, but has suffered losses in both national and regional elections since 2006. The party won 12 seats (8.7%) in the Catalan parliament in the regional elections in 1999, and in 2003 it became the third largest party with 23 seats (16.5%) and participated in the three-party coalition with the PSC and the ICV under Prime Minister Pasqual Maragall (PSC). In the Catalan regional elections in 2006 , she won 21 seats (15.6%) in the Catalan parliament and took part in a new edition of the three-party coalition under the socialist José Montilla . Since then, the ERC has been the trigger for polemical debates in Spain on several occasions - for example through the meeting of party chairman Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira with members of the Basque terrorist organization ETA in early 2004 or through Carod-Rovira's refusal to take part in a visit to Israel by the Catalan regional government in May 2005 to take part in a memorial service for Yitzhak Rabin in Jerusalem, because only the Spanish, not the Catalan flag should be hoisted there. The reform of the Catalan Statute of Autonomy, through which new powers were transferred to the regional government, was initially co-decided by the ERC in September 2005, but was later rejected because of various compromises compared to the originally adopted draft (including the deletion of the term "Catalan nation" from the draft text). This led to a crisis in May 2006, as a result of which the ERC left the regional government, whereupon new elections were called. In the elections in November 2006, the ERC suffered slight losses and won 21 seats (14.1%). The three-party coalition was then continued under the new Catalan Prime Minister José Montilla (PSC). In the regional elections in November 2010, the ERC lost more than half of its seats and, as the fifth largest party, was only an opposition party . In the Catalan parliamentary elections on November 25, 2012, the party received 13.7% of the vote and is now the second largest group in the regional parliament with 21 seats. On the basis of a tolerance agreement, it supports the minority government of the bourgeois-Catalan CiU .

In the Spanish parliament, the ERC had only 3 seats since the parliamentary elections in 2008 and thus lost its parliamentary group status. In her home country Catalonia she fell - mainly because of the current Spanish development towards a two-party system, the polarization of which between PSOE and PP had a negative effect on the small and regional parties - from 15.89% (2004) to 7 .86% off. This led to a new election of the party leadership in June, in which the moderate-regionalist wing around Joan Puigcercós was able to prevail against the more separatist Carod-Rovira.

At the European level, ERC participates in the European Free Alliance (EFA), an alliance of European regional parties . As part of this alliance, she ran for European elections together with other Spanish parties ( Chunta Aragonesista , Eusko Alkartasuna , Partido Andalucista and Bloque Nacionalista Galego ) . In the 2004 European elections , this list connection reached a seat in the European Parliament , which was initially taken by ERC member Bernat Joan i Marí , after whose departure from parliament in June 2007 by Mikel Irujo (EA). In the European elections in Spain in 2009 , Oriol Junqueras (ERC) was the top candidate on this list. for the 2014 European elections, she forged her own Catalan electoral alliance with the two small parties NECat and CATSÍ under the name “L'Esquerra pel Dret a Decidir”, through which Josep Maria Terricabras was elected to the European Parliament.

For the 2015 election to the Spanish Parliament , the ERC formed an electoral alliance with the small party Catalunya Sí under the name ERC-CATSÍ. In the election to the Catalan regional parliament on September 27, 2015 , she stood together with the CDC in the electoral alliance Junts pel Sí and helped the joint list to a clear victory in favor of the independence camp with around 39% of the votes; the former partner of the CDC, the UDC , on the other hand, could not win a single mandate, so his voting potential was taken over. This electoral alliance - although planned for a long time - was not reissued for the election to the Spanish parliament on December 20, 2015. In the national election, however, the ERC-CATSÍ was able to significantly increase its share compared to 2011 with 2.39% (in Catalonia 15.99%) and nine seats. In the new election on June 26, 2016, ERC-CATSÍ again won nine seats with 2.63% (in Catalonia 18.17%).

Since January 17, 2018, the ERC has appointed Roger Torrent as the President of the Catalan regional parliament, which was newly elected in Catalonia's parliamentary elections in 2017 . In this election, the electoral alliance of ERC and CATSÍ won 21.39% of 32 of the 135 seats. It also includes the mayor of Sarrià de Ter in Catalonia 's Girona province .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Website of the youth organization: jerc.cat/
  2. ↑ Vincenzo Capodici, "" Junts pel Sí ": On the way to Catalonia's independence" , Tages Anzeiger , September 26, 2015
  3. ↑ Results ( memento of June 29, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) on infoelecciones.es, accessed on March 7, 2018.
  4. ↑ Reiner Wandler: Catalan Parliament begins its work. Der Standard , January 17, 2017