Calling for dialogue as the only way to find a future path
In the 40th anniversary of the coming back of the President Tarradellas in Catalonia after a thirty-eight-year exile, the call for dialogue, carried out by the Independent Commission for Meditation, Dialogue and Conciliation, filled up the room of the Paranimph of the University of Barcelona to demand “negotiation and understanding” as the only possible way to exit the growing tension that can put the self-government of Catalonia in danger.
In the 40th anniversary of the coming back of the President Tarradellas in Catalonia after a thirty-eight-year exile, the call for dialogue, carried out by the Independent Commission for Meditation, Dialogue and Conciliation, filled up the room of the Paranimph of the University of Barcelona to demand “negotiation and understanding” as the only possible way to exit the growing tension that can put the self-government of Catalonia in danger.
The rector of the University of Barcelona, Joan Elias, welcomed the attendants and claimed for “dialogue as the tool to open a path for the future”. Afterwards, Argèlia Queralt, lecturer of Constitutional Law at the UB and editor in chief of Agenda Pública, chaired a four-speaker table formed by Federico Maryor Zaragoza, president of Cultura de Pau Foundation and former director of UNESCO; Esther Giménez-Salinas, emeritus professor of Penal Law and Criminology at Ramon Llull University; Francesc Xavier Moreno, director of the Master Degree in Family Mediation and Mediation in Private Law at UAB, and Milagros Pérez Oliva, journalist.
When asked if there is a place for dialogue to solve the Catalan conflict, Mayor Zaragoza rephrasing Machado: “Today is always still”, he said, defending dialogue is always possible. Moreno added that “it is the only understandable and civilized way to solve the conflict”. Milagros Pérez Oliva said “implementing 155 or one-sided declaration of independence will not be easy”. “We are in confrontation area”, she said, and said that “none of the parts is strong enough to impose the other and therefore, minimize the damage of the conflict”.
The lecturer of the UAB noted that “a social and constructive dialogue is necessary, done with good intentions and willing to understand the other part”. “It will be difficult to get a meditation accepted unless the conflict represents a threat for everytone”, said Pérez Oliva, who thinks that if institutions do not want to talk, civil society has to take on the initiative. Mayor Zaragoza went for a “federal State” as a solution, which would involve a reform in the Constitution, “something they did not let us do in 1978”, he said, and added that “right to self-determination is only valid in countries under a colonial situation or military occupation”. Pérez Oliva also pointed out that the independence movement has no options to make its program a reality, and that the Popular Party cannot govern Catalonia without peopleʼs consent. “The quality of democracy in Spain is at stake. Negotiating to prevent this from happening is the biggest benefit we can get”, he concluded.
Appeal of dialogue from confronted positions, call for calm, a truce and generosity, recognition of parts and legal proposals and the will to preserve coexistence were the most shared topics among the speakers. Rector Joan Elias closed the meeting reminding that universities have to play their role: “As an institution based on contrasting ideas, putting our values at societyʼs service has to be one of our functions”. “The university is plural, just like society. This enriches us. He have to overcome the obstacles using the word”, noted Elias, and repeated that regarding the implementing of article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, the University of Barcelona will always be loyal supporting the Catalan institutions and their self-government.
More pictures of the meeting are available on the University of Barcelona's Flickr