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Separatists retain speaker in new Catalan parliament

Catalan separatist parties managed to hang onto the role of speaker in their region's new parliament on Monday, despite losing their absolute majority in elections last month.

Published: 11 June 2024 09:25 CEST

Separatists retain speaker in new Catalan parliament

Newly-elected Catalonia Parliament's Speaker, Josep Rull of separatist party Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) passes the Mossos d'Escuadra honor guard as he leaves the Generalitat Palace in Barcelona on June 10, 2024. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP)

During the new parliament’s opening session, lawmakers elected Josep Rull, a member of the hardline separatist JxCat party, which is headed by exiled former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont.

Rull was one of the separatist politicians who spent more than three years behind bars over his role in a failed 2017 independence bid before being pardoned in 2021.

READ ALSO: Catalan independence for beginners – Five key points

He was elected with 59 votes, beating his Socialist rival by a wide margin in a second round of voting following a last-minute deal between JxCat, its more moderate separatist ERC and the hard-left CUP.

The role is an important strategic position as the speaker is charged with proposing the first candidate to try and piece together a new regional government.

Last month’s regional election was won by the Catalan branch of Spain’s ruling Socialists, which secured 42 of the regional parliament’s 135 seats, unseating the separatists for the first time in decades.

But the Socialists’ leader Salvador Illa faces an uphill battle to piece together the support to reach the 68 mandates required to rule as ERC has ruled out any coalition deal with them.

Puigdemont – whose JxCat party came second with 35 seats – has also pledged to try and build a coalition although the separatist parties only secured 59 seats, meaning he too will struggle to pass the threshold.

The Catalan parliament must vote on a new government by June 25th at the latest.

If no government is in place by August 25, new elections will be called.

Puigdemont — who fled Spain to avoid prosecution over the botched 2017 independence bid — is due to return from years of self-imposed exile in the coming months thanks to a freshly minted amnesty law for Catalan separatists.

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Could Spain ever dethrone King Felipe and become a republic?

King Felipe VI is set to celebrate a decade on the Spanish throne. He became king on June 19th 2014 following the abdication of his scandal-ridden father, former King Juan Carlos.

This meant that Felipe took over the crown needing to somewhat rehabilitate the public image of la Casa Real. According to polling data released to coincide with his decade as king, it seems he’s done a decent enough job of it so far. In fact, after 10 years on the throne his approval rating has grown.

READ ALSO: What do Spaniards think of their royal family?

Felipe obtained an average score of 6.6 among Spaniards polled, surpassing, for the first time, the 6.5 mark. This is according to a survey carried out by the IMOP Insights Institute for Vanitatis.

In fact, after a decade the majority of Spaniards approve of the King’s performance: 46.4 percent have a positive view of his work, compared to 20.9 percent who are critical or hold a negative view.

Older people generally have more favourable views of Felipe and the monarchy, whereas under 25s are the only group with a negative opinion of him.

In terms of regional breakdown, the most pro-Felipe part of the country was found to be Andalusia and the least, to the surprise of absolutely nobody in Spain, was Catalonia.

Many royal commentators in Spain argue that Felipe, along with his daughter, Princess of Asturias Leonor, have taken big steps to restoring the Spanish crown’s credibility.

That Felipe’s personal approval rating has grown over time is testament to that, and positive ratings, especially after a decade in the public eye, is something most politicians could only dream of.

That is to say, there doesn’t seem to be any danger of Spaniards turning on their king for now. But what if Spanish public opinion changed over time and suddenly Spain did want to become a republic?

Legally, constitutionally speaking, could Spain ever dethrone King Felipe and become a republic?

Spain’s King Felipe VI and Spain’s Queen Letizia attend a ceremony for the Spanish Crown Princess of Asturias. Photo: JAVIER SORIANO/AFP.

The steps to a republic

Even if Spaniards themselves wanted it, transitioning from a constitutional monarchy to a republic involves a lot of steps that make it highly unlikely, perhaps even impossible.

The change would require two-thirds support in both chambers of the Spanish Congress, something that is very unlikely in the current political climate. Such consensus across both houses is very, very rare.

But, theoretically speaking, to get rid of the king the Spanish legislature would first need to amend Article 1 of the título preliminar of the Spanish Constitution, which outlines the state structure and clearly says that: “the form of the Spanish state is a parliamentary monarchy”.

To do this, the government or Congress would have to call for a vote on constitutional reform in the Congress of Deputies and it would have to pass with a qualified majority, that is, with a majority of two thirds or more, which is equivalent to 234 or more deputies.

READ ALSO: How much do Spain’s king and royal family make?

It would then have to be ratified in the Senate with the same qualified majority. Of the 265 senators, 177 would have to be in favour.

But it doesn’t end there. If both chambers agree, Congress would be dissolved, a general election would have to be called, and the voting would have to be repeated among the new deputies.

However, there’s still one final hurdle: a general referendum. The people’s referendum is meant to function as a sort of fail-safe or quality control on the actions of the legislature, especially on such a huge constitutional question.

Javier Tajadura, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of the Basque Country, told Spanish website Newtral that “the referendum serves as a form of citizen control of what the Cortes want to carry out, and it must be carried out after the votes [in both houses] have been taken.”

If, after all the votes in Congress pass with suitable majorities, the referendum also results in a yes and it is undeniable that Spaniards want to change from monarchy to republic, Spain would become a republic.

Then the debate would shift to whether Spain would need an entirely new constitution, or it would need to make some (pretty huge) changes to the pre-existing constitution of 1978.

So, yes. Spain could, in theory, become a republic. Clearly, the Spanish system has a lot of checks and balances embedded within it that makes moving from a monarchy to a republic constitutionally complicated, politically unlikely, and, in realistic terms, very improbable to the point of being almost impossible.

As Miguel Ángel Cabellos, Professor of Constitutional law at the University of Girona, puts it: “Beyond the fact that it is a change of an essential and core element of the political system, which would also radically divide society, the truth is that from a legal point of view the difficulties are very notable, one could almost say insurmountable in practice.”

READ ALSO: The one thing to know about each of Spain’s ‘crazy’ kings and queens

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