Spanish Socialists Want to Move Senate From Madrid to Barcelona

(Bloomberg) -- The Socialists are calling for the upper chamber of the Spanish parliament to be moved to Barcelona as part of a wider program of reforms to reinforce the links between Catalonia and the rest of the country.

The party is looking for ways to heal wounds after the trauma of an illegal declaration of independence by the Catalan Parliament last month left many on both sides angry and resentful. Catalans will vote Dec. 21 to elect a new legislature after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy seized direct control of the region in a bid to restore order.

“We want to have elements of political integration after a situation in which we were close to break up,” Miquel Iceta, 57, said in an interview Wednesday in Barcelona. “We have to seek reconciliation among Catalans and between Catalans and the rest of Spain. For that we have to find concrete examples that make it credible, so people who supported independence can see an alternative way for Catalonia to gain recognition without breaking with Spain.”

While the Socialists are running in fourth place in the polls, and only second among the pro-Spain parties, Iceta has a chance of becoming the next Catalan president. His conciliatory line makes him the best placed to pull together an alternative coalition if the separatist parties fall short of a majority.

New Model

All the same, such an alliance would be a complicated undertaking that would involve finding common ground across an ideological spectrum that includes the hardline conservatives of Rajoy's People's Party and the Catalan affiliate of the anti-establishment group Podemos, which is in favor of letting Catalans vote on their future.

Taking control of the Catalan government wouldn't on its own give Iceta the power to push through his plans -- the national parliament in Madrid would need to approve a constitutional reform -- but it would give him a platform to lobby for those changes. The idea of moving the Senate could attract broad support, since Rajoy's government considered it in 2014.

If Iceta manages to form a government he will name a deputy to deal with the day-to-day management while he focuses on the region's relationship with the rest of Spain, European institutions and international investors, he said.

A Socialist government will push for improvements in the system used to distribute tax revenue across Spain's regions, a clearer assignation of the functions between the central and regional governments, and an increase in central-government spending on infrastructure such as the railways, said Iceta. The changes should be completed with a reform of the constitution to make the senate chamber that represents the regions' interests in national policies, he said.

“Why did people who weren't pro-independence became pro-independence? I think due to a lack of an alternative,” said Iceta, a former staffer in Felipe Gonzalez's government and later mayor of a town near Barcelona, “If the alternative is to stay as we are, support for independence will keep growing, if the alternative is finding a new deal the pro-independence camp will shrink.”

The separatist camp formed by Esquerra Republicana, ousted President Carles Puigdemont's group and the radicals of the CUP may fall just short of the 68 seats needed for a majority in the regional chamber, according to analysis of a range of polls by El Pais.

To contact the reporter on this story: Esteban Duarte in Madrid at eduarterubia@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net, Ben Sills, Andy Sharp

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