Esquerra puts forward during the General Policy Debate a battery of proposed resolutions with a crash plan for the crisis, including sectoral measures

The urgent need to draw up a Catalan Electoral Law has been expressed repeatedly over the years by different political parties, with several attempts at passing a bill through the Parliament of Catalonia. That is why, to continue progressing in the institutional development of Catalonia, Esquerra Republicana has singly introduced a proposal for a resolution during the General Policy Debate urging the passage of Catalonia’s own electoral law that has so often been called for.

The priorities of the Esquerra Republicana parliamentary group in this General Policy Debate also include the presentation of concrete measures to deal with the economic and energy crisis, and to stand by the people in the response to issues of social and national progress. For this reason, with the proposals for resolution presented jointly, Esquerra focusses on a shock plan to deal with the consequences of inflation with several key proposals President Aragonès announced in his speech on Tuesday.

Among the measures presented are a 50% increase in provisions for the Thermal Social Bonus scheme for the most vulnerable households, a direct aid to families of 100 euros per student at school, a housing rental aid programme for those of up to 36 years of age, and the extension of the T-Jove public transport card to the age of 30, along with a provision of 180 million euros to accelerate the energy transition and to respond to the climate crisis.

In defence of the Catalan Republic and the local model

The country's institutional and social progress is for Esquerra inseparable from the horizon of establishing Catalonia’s own State. To confirm these objectives, the parliamentary group has singly endorsed a resolution proposal in defence of the Catalan Republic as the best way to guarantee a country of rights, freedoms and opportunities for all. Esquerra insists on the will of the majority of Catalonia's citizens to democratically decide on the country's political future and resolve the political conflict "provoked by the State's inability to respond to this majority," by democratic means.

In this regard, the local environment is key to the construction of the Catalan Republic, which is why one of the Esquerra group's proposals urges Parliament to defend and empower it. The proposal denounces and points to the Spanish State as the actor responsible for the structural deficit of qualified personnel to fill the secretarial, comptroller and treasury positions in town councils and the combined local administrations, and demands devolution of those responsibilities.

Sector proposals

Among the joint proposals for sectoral resolutions, Esquerra Republicana draws particular attention to the need to promote a large public digital platform through the Catalan Media Corporation (Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals, CCMA) for citizens to gain access to digital content in Catalan in a regular manner, especially for youths and children, in a platform similar to the established Netflix, Amazon, HBO, etc. (proposed resolution PR 1.6) with content in Catalan. Regarding Culture, there is also a joint proposal to the chamber to promote a monographic session on language.

There are also measures regarding territorial equity, amongst which is the establishment of a generational agricultural relief strategy (PR 16.3) and two key measures for rail mobility: the transfer of the Rodalies commuter train services (PR 20) and for the Government to develop a study to improve the rail network, including the doubling of single-track lines (PR 17.2)

Another measure is to require the State to amend state legislation so that the large holders of housing are obliged to offer social rentals in the event of evictions, as passed by Parliament in pioneer legislation, so as to avoid a challenge to the Catalan law before Spain’s Constitutional Court (PR 9.6).

Regarding Health, a proposed resolution worth noting is to continue working to gradually and progressively assign 25% of the Health budget to primary care so that it remains one of the pillars of the health system (PR 6.4).

Another priority of the Catalan health system must be sexual and reproductive care, and access to voluntary terminations of pregnancy, guaranteeing territorial equity, a broadly demanded requirement that urges a response with a new protocol and a plan to improve access to long-term contraceptive methods while moving towards making these free (PR 6.7).