Junts per Catalunya

Junts per Catalunya Junts
Party leader	Carles Puigdemont
Secretary General	Jordi Sànchez
Deputy Chairman	Jordi Turull, Elsa Artadi, Josep Rius, Anna Erra
speaker	Elsa Artadi
Emergence	Former members of PDeCAT with no party
founding	July 25, 2020
Place of foundation	Barcelona / Brussels
Headquarters	Barcelona
Youth organization	Joventut Nacionalista de Catalunya
Alignment	Liberalism Catalan nationalism Separatism Republicanism Right of self-determination Rights of nations without a state
Colours)	turquoise
Mayor of Catalonia (before the separation)	370/947
Catalan Parliament	32/135
Spanish House of Representatives	4/350 (8 seats as electoral alliance)
Spanish Senate	5/265
Barcelona City Hall	5/41
Number of members	~ 4000
MEPs	3/59
EP Group	Non-attached
Website	www.junts.cat

Junts per Catalunya ( Junts for short ; as an electoral alliance JuntsxCat ; German : "Together for Catalonia") is a Catalan separatist political party . It was originally founded as an electoral alliance around the deposed Catalan President Carles Puigdemont for the parliamentary elections in Catalonia in December 2017 , consisting of the PDeCAT and non- party members . It was registered as a party in July 2018.

history

background

After the openly separatist parties could not agree on a common electoral list, as had happened with JxSí for the previous election in 2015, Puigdemont decided not to run exclusively with his party, PDeCAT. Thus the alliance Junts per Catalunya was founded together with non-party supporters of independence.

Catalan election 2017

In the regional parliament election, JuntsxCat was the strongest party in support of independence with 34 seats, but the strongest party overall was the Ciutadans , who oppose independence. Together with the previous separatist coalition partners ERC and CUP , the party received a narrow majority in parliament (70 votes out of 135); However, 5 of the separatist MPs (including three from JxCat: Carles Puigdemont , as well as Lluís Puig and Clara Ponsatí) were under arrest warrant for riot, rebellion and misappropriation of public funds and were on the run in Belgium, and were therefore unable to attend the meetings and vote . Furthermore, two members of the JxCat are in custody (Joaquim Forn and Jordi Sanchez ), but were able to delegate their votes with the consent of the responsible judge.

At the end of March 2018, five other former separatist ministers of the Puigdemont government were arrested (including Jordi Turull , who ran unsuccessfully for election as prime minister on March 22nd ); a little later, Puigdemont was also temporarily detained in Germany due to a new European arrest warrant, but was able to vote delegate. Quim Torra , who was ranked 11th on the list, was just elected as the new regional president of the Generalitat on May 14, 2018 with the support of the ERC (and the CUP abstaining) in the second ballot.

Elections 2019

In the 2019 Spanish parliamentary elections , JuntsxCat received 500,787 votes (12.1% in Catalonia) and thus seven seats in the House of Representatives and two in the Senate. In the 2019 European elections , JuntsxCat received 1,025,411 votes (28.5% in Catalonia) and thus two seats. Elected MPs Carles Puigdemont and Antoni Comín remain in Belgium to avoid arrest in Spain. Therefore, they did not take the oath on the Spanish constitution in Madrid as was necessary.

Break with PDeCAT and independence

Junts per Catalunya was already registered as a formally independent party in the party register in July 2018. This was done at the instigation of PDeCAT primarily to secure the designation " Junts " or " Junts per Catalunya " for future elections (as a trademark, so to speak ). This is not uncommon in Spain, where the founding and registration of a party only depends on a few formal requirements, and it is also done more often by other political camps. In Spain one speaks of "instrumental parties" ( partidos instrumentales ), which exist as a legal person, but do not develop their own political activity, but are founded for other purposes (such as securing the name).

In the summer of 2020, a group around Puigdemont managed to make Junts via Catalunya independent. At an online congress in August 2020, Puigdemont, who continues to live in exile in Belgium, was elected as the new party chairman and Jordi Sànchez, who was imprisoned for separatist aspirations, was elected Secretary General.

The PDeCAT criticized the takeover of the previously instrumental party by Puigdemont as a “fraudulent maneuver”. However, it failed in court with an attempt to stop this by means of an injunction. The majority of MPs elected to the Catalan regional parliament via the Junts per Catalunya list in 2017 joined the party led by Puigdemont.

Regional election 2021

As a result of the break between Junts per Catalunya and PDeCAT, the two parties each ran their own lists in the regional parliament elections on February 14, 2021 . The candidacy of Junts per Catalunya was a.o. by Crida Nacional per la República (CNxR), Acció per la República (AxR), Els Verds - Alternativa Verda (EV – AV), Reagrupament (RI.cat), Demòcrates de Catalunya (DC), Moviment d'Esquerres (MES) and Solidaritat Catalana per la Independència (SI). Members of these groups also ran for election on lists from Junts per Catalunya .

In the election, Junts per Catalunya took third place both in terms of votes and mandates with a share of the vote and 32 mandates won, just behind the PSC (23% and 33 mandates) and the ERC (21% and 33 mandates). With just under 3% of the votes, the PDeCAT no longer succeeded in making it into the regional parliament.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Nordsieck, Wolfram: Parties and Elections in Europe. 2017, accessed February 26, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Junts per Catalunya, la lista del PDECat que encapçalarà Puigdemont. Retrieved December 21, 2017 (Catalan). 
3. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 30, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Junts per Catalunya, la marca con la que Puigdemont quiere plantar cara a ERC. Noticias de Cataluña . In: El Confidencial . ( elconfidencial.com [accessed December 21, 2017]).
5. ↑ Puigdemont ofrece a Rovira la lista país y renuncia a las siglas corruptas de PDeCAT. Blogs de Caza Mayor . In: El Confidencial . ( elconfidencial.com [accessed December 21, 2017]).
6. ↑ Ediciones EL PAÍS: Results Electorals a Catalunya: Eleccions Catalanes 2017 . In: EL PAÍS . ( elpais.com [accessed December 21, 2017]).
7. ↑ https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/europawahl/katalanen-politiker-puigdemont-ins-europaparlament-gewaehlt-16208209.html