Carles Riera, deputy for the Popular Unity Candidature (CUP), announced at the beginning of the general political debate in the Catalan Parliament on Tuesday, the presentation of a resolution that the chamber will vote on proposing a self-determination referendum before the end of the current legislature, in February 2025. This parliamentary initiative by the CUP has wrong-footed the two governing pro-independence parties, the Republican Left (ERC) and Together for Catalonia (Junts), whose agenda does not at the moment include the celebration of a new consultation with the people of Catalonia - an action which, in the past, led to significant prison sentences for members of the government led by Carles Puigdemont.
In any case, ERC and Junts will have to decide for or against the CUP resolution this Thursday, which is when the proposals of the different political groups will be put to the vote in Parliament. In terms of the political short-term, the pending government budget stands out as the main initiative of this political year, and the CUP has now added new pressure to this by linking the two issues on Tuesday. In any case, the independence movement that holds the reins of the country will find it difficult to explain how it defends a referendum at the dialogue table with the Spanish government and opposes an initiative based on the same concept in the Parliament of Catalonia.
The CUP has made a move with parliamentary nous and cunning, and it cannot be denied that it has put the other two pro-independence parties in a bind, since they also need to find political initiatives that project a minimal possibility of getting out of the current situation of deadlock. ERC is attempting this through the dialogue table, which, for now, has a limited horizon and it is difficult to imagine that it is the solution to the entrenched political problem, given the rigid and authoritarian attitude of Pedro Sánchez's Spanish government. Given that the table has an agreed two-year horizon and the proposal is for the referendum to take place before February 2025, there is no inherent time conflict between the two initiatives.
There is also an added factor that cannot go unnoticed. ERC and Junts would no doubt have preferred not to have to decide on a new referendum now. But can they oppose it? The argument that a referendum has already been held, on October 1st, 2017, and that what it signified must be preserved, is true. But it is incomplete. The government parties may be caught in a cobweb which makes it difficult for them to explain the defence of a strategy that contemplates "democratic combat" if they vote against the CUP proposal or simply abstain.
On top of all this is the second independence referendum in Scotland, which the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, wants to push through, and which UK government of Boris Johnson has not yet approved and continues to resist. Taking a position which aligns with the Scottish initiative makes all the sense in the world, as the debate will generate two poles of important political attraction, and will also help to show international public opinion the differences between London and Madrid.